W. H. SMITH & SON'S 
SUBSCRIPTION LIBRARY, 

XRAND, LONDON, 

RAILWAY BOOKSTALLS. 



AND AT 
NOVELS ARE ISSUE 



FOR 6UBSCRIB 
For ONE Vol 

(Novels in more 

For TWO Vo 

(Novels in more 

F jr THREE 
For FOUR 
For SIX 
For TWELVE 




RECEIVED FROM SUBSCRIBERS IN SETS ONLY. 



TERMS. *■ m 

Q THEIR BOOKS FROM A COUNTRY BOOKSTALL— 

6 Montis , IS Month*. 

time .. .. .. £0 12 o .. l l 

olume are not availablejor this class o/ Subscription.) 

17 6 .. 1 11 6 

olumes are not available for this class oj Subscription. J 
s ;, 1 3 .. 2 2 



wr 



<7* t:U 



The clerks in charge of Mess»6. W. H. Smith &-;5$h'S bookstalls are required to see that 
books with Illustrations and Maps are jssu.ed;toptad received from the subscribers to the 



Library 



set and condition. 



| LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. \ 

■Chap :. 

sheif : 



I 



ITED STATES OF AMEREGA. 



2C&2^2QZ2tt2mG!K^ZQZ'Z2GZ & 




THE GREAT DOMINION 



THE 



GEEAT DOMINION 

STUDIES OF CANADA 



GEORGE E.° PARKIN, M.A. 

. HON. LL.D. UNIV. NEW BRUNSWICK 



WITH MAPS 



HonUon 

MACMILLAN AND CO. 

AND NEW YORK 
1895 

t-lB 



rib \5 



Richard Clay and Sons, Limited, 
london and bungay. 



c2-/Q T%^ 



PREFACE 

The greater part of the matter contained in the 
following pages appeared during the past year in a 
series of letters to the Times. Those letters were the 
result of a somewhat careful study, made in behalf of 
that journal during the autumn and winter of 1892-3 of 
many parts of the Dominion which I had not visited 
before, as well as of other portions with which I had long 
been familiar. A later visit, made during the summer 
of 1894, has enabled me to make many additions on 
questions of interest, and in a few minor points to correct 
earlier impressions. It also gave me the opportunity of 
submitting my statements on various questions to the 
judgment of friends whose criticism derived special 
value from their full knowledge of particular localities. 

The form in which the studies originally appeared 
necessarily involved the choice of a limited number of 
subjects and condensed treatment. It will therefore be 
understood that no attempt is here made to treat ex- 
haustively the manifold conditions of a country which, 
like Canada, covers half a continent. The object kept 
steadily in view has been rather that the letters should, 
so far as they go, leave upon the mind of the reader a 
true impression. An endeavour has also been made to 
select those subjects upon which it seems most necessary 
that accurate information should be easily accessible, 



vi Preface 

and a measured judgment formed, both within the 
Dominion and without. 

The order of treatment has been determined by con- 
siderations other than those of geographical continuity. 

Directly or indirectly the studies will, I think, be 
found to touch upon the most significant conditions of 
Canadian life, the most important of the problems 
which confront Canadians/and those external relations 
which have the greatest general interest. 

It has been a satisfaction to find that throughout 
Canada they have, in their original form, been very 
generally accepted as fair statements of the questions 
with which they deal. As I have never hesitated to 
point out the drawbacks and limitations of the country 
as well as its advantages, this approval seems to indicate 
that Canadians have reached a point where they are 
quite willing that the merits and defects of their country 
should be freely weighed together. The fact marks an 
important stage in the growth of a self-reliant feeling 
in a young community. 

There are good grounds for believing that the diffusion 
among British people of trustworthy information about 
the various parts of the empire, and concerning the place 
which each of the greater divisions, at least, is fitted to 
hold in the national system, will do much to keep the 
lines of further national development in true directions. 
I can only hope that what is here written of the greatest of 
the colonies may in some slight degree serve th is purpose. 

My best thanks are due to the proprietors of the 
Tiirics for their readily granted permission to reproduce 
in another form material which first appeared in their 
columns. 

G. R. P. 

London, January. 1895. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 
INTRODUCTORY 1 



CHAPTER I 

THE NORTH-WEST 9 

CHAPTER II 
the north-west — continued 26 

CHAPTER III 

THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY 46 

CHAPTER IV 
COAL 73 

CHAPTER V 

EASTERN CANADA : ONTARIO AND THE MARITIME PROVINCES 89 

CHAPTER VI 

eastern Canada — continued : Quebec 127 

CHAPTER VII 

BRITISH COLUMBIA 157 



viii Contents 



CHAPTER VIII 

PAGE 

NORTHERN CANADA : THE GREAT FUR COUNTRY .173 



CHAPTER IX 

TRADE RELATIONS AND TRADE POLICY 184 

CHAPTER X 

LABOUR, EDUCATION AND POLITICAL TENDENCIES 209 

INDEX 245 



MAPS 

A MAP OF THE DOMINION OF CANADA, SHOWING THE CANADIAN 

pacific railway To face page 1 

>. ONTARIO AND QUEBEC RAILWAY SYSTEM To face page 89 

4 the maritime provinces railway system . . To face page 15G 



^-^ 



120' 110- 









i 



, 







^4^ffc&i& . ,nX*4.s 




. 





^» v< /". /, 





_ ^ UL. \ V _ HIK DOMINION OF ( 



\NADA 

SHOWING THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. 



THE GKEAT DOMINION 



INTRODUCTORY 

Many of the problems connected with the present 
condition and future development of the Dominion of 
Canada have a profound interest for the people of the 
United Kingdom and of the empire at large. In these 
problems are involved matters deeply affecting maritime 
position, imperial defence and communications, food and 
coal supply, trade relations, emigration, and many other 
questions which, from a national point of view, are of 
the first importance. 

The study of these questions seems more necessary 
now than ever before. While the growth of population 
in the Dominion has not been so great during the last 
two decades as was expected, events have nevertheless 
moved fast. Advances in political and physical consolida- 
tion have been made which greatly change Canada's 
relation to the empire and to the world. This move- 
ment is one which, in the very nature of things, must 
have far reaching national consequences. 

It does not seem an exaggeration to say that the 



2 The Great Dominion intro. 

course which affairs take in Canada during the next few 
years may have a decisive influence upon the direction 
of British History. The primary reason for this im- 
pression is obvious. Canada is the first of the great 
colonies which has formed a political combination which 
gives her a position closely akin to that of a nation. 
Her territory comprises nearly 40 per cent, of the 
whole empire, and covers half of the North American 
continent. It is only within the last few years that 
Canadians themselves have become fully conscious of 
the vast possibilities of this largely undeveloped area. 
Facing upon the two greatest oceans of the globe, the 
country is now brought into easy commercial com- 
munication and international relation with the rest of 
the world. Across the breadth of the continent it 
borders upon, and therefore has more or less intimate 
relations with, the United States. Thus, though Canada 
has not a nation's franchise, her people and statesmen 
have been forced to consider in many ways the interests 
of a nation. By the mere compulsion of circumstances 
her statesmen are fast becoming statesmen of the 
empire. Already more than once their advice has 
been essential to the wise conduct of the most difficult 
imperial negotiations. It is facts like these which give 
such extreme national significance to her present position. 
In what direction will point the interests and aspirations 
of a great colony which has reached this stage of growth ? 
How far do these interests and aspirations coincide 
with those of British people generally ? These are 
large questions which cannot be answered off-hand. 



intro. Introductory 



That they must be answered sooner or later invites or 
almost compels the careful study of Canadian 
conditions. 

For gaining a due sense of proportion in such study 
some glance at the main geographical facts is a necessary 
preliminary. 

If we follow its changes of direction the southern 
boundary of Canada stretches over fully 4,000 miles. 
Along this line we find that Southern Ontario has the 
latitude of Central Italy ; Nova Scotia that of Northern 
Italy ; Vancouver and Manitoba that of Central 
Germany. These latitudes, modified greatly in their 
influence by maritime or continental conditions, give, as 
I shall have occasion to show, very wide variations of 
climate. 

Northward from this frontier base (a parallel of 
latitude in the West ; in the East extremely irregular), 
the territory well adapted by climate for comfortable 
settlement varies much in breadth. Sometimes it is 
narrow, as to the north of Lake Superior; in other parts 
it extends north and south from three hundred to five 
hundred miles. In the further growth of the country 
the bulk of population will remain within these limits. 

Further northward are immense areas, still habitable, 
but with the range of agriculture limited to hardier 
products. These areas again gradually fall away into 
regions only fitted for forest growth, and finally into 
Arctic spaces where game, furs and fish, all of which 
abound, and mineral wealth, are the only present or 

B 2 



4 The Great Dominion intro. 

prospective incentives to exploration or industrial 
occupation. Russia, extending from Asia Minor to the 
Arctic, is the only other country which furnishes a 
parallel range of conditions in passing from south to 
north. 

When we consider the country from east to west 
some remarkable features are to be observed. Old or 
Eastern Canada extends from the Atlantic to Lakes 
Huron and Superior. The fact which here most of all 
arrests attention is that even to the heart of the con- 
tinent Eastern Canada has a position essentially 
maritime.' The Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Bay of 
Fundy, with innumerable smaller inlets, penetrate the 
coast, and give the Atlantic frontage a remarkable 
length of coast line. From the Gulf of St. Lawrence 
the river of the same name, at first a broad estuary of 
the sea, and later one of the largest of streams carries 
ocean steamships to Montreal, and leads up, by ways 
made navigable, to the great inland fresh-water seas 
which almost encircle Ontario, and afterwards stretch 
westward to the confines of the prairies. Here, half 
way across the continent, the salt waters of the vast 
Hudson's Bay have penetrated till they are parted from 
the fresh waters of Lake Superior by only four or five 
hundred miles of intervening land, thus completing the 
maritime environment of the country. 

New Canada lies westward of Lake Superior. 
" Taking a line drawn north and south in the longi- 
tude of the Red River Valley, which is, as nearly as 
may be, the centre of Canada from east to west, it may 



intro. Introductory 5 

confidently be stated that by far the larger part of the 
country in which agricultural settlement is possible lies 
to the west, while the great bulk of the actual popula- 
tion lies to the east of this line." 1 It is thus that one 
of the most competent authorities on the subject states 
the relation to the rest of Canada of the great North 
West. He goes on to say : " This disposition of the 
cultivable land depends partly upon the physical 
characteristics of the country, and in part on its 
climatic conditions. Be} r oncl Winnipeg, and stretch- 
ing therefrom to the west and north-west, is the great 
area of prairie, plain, and plateau, which, wider near 
the forty-ninth parallel than elsewhere on the continent, 
runs on in one form or other, though with diminishing 
width, to the Arctic Ocean. This is, generally speak- 
ing, an alluvial region, and one of fertile soils. Very, 
fortunately, and as though by a beneficent provision of 
nature, the climatic features favour the utilisation of 
this belt. The summer isothermals, which carry with 
them the possibility of ripening crops, trend far to the 
north." 

One further characteristic of this division of Canada 
is to be noted. Even when the centre of the continent 
has been reached, and navigation by large vessels is 
ended, for steamers of light draught, and, when these 
fail, for the canoes and batteaux of the voyageur and 
freighter, there are still thousands of miles of river and 
lake navigation, along the course of the Saskatchewan 
Athabaska, Peace, Mackenzie, Nelson and other rivers 
1 Dr. G. M. Dawson, of the Canadian Geological Survey. 



6 The Great Dominion intro. 

to the shore of the Arctic Ocean and the Hudson's Bay. 
The rich furs gathered even at the mouth of the 
Mackenzie and around the Arctic Circle have for gene- 
rations been carried by water, save for a few miles of 
land portage, from the place of collection to Fort York 
or Montreal, and thence to London. Over much of 
the remoter sections of this route steam is now 
employed. 

To the advantages derived from this unparalleled 
system of inland communication there is one limitation. 
For four or five winter months ice closes to navigation 
alike the lakes, the canals, the St. Lawrence, and the 
more remote streams. Fortunately the Maritime 
Provinces give to the Dominion ports which are open 
the whole year round. 

The temporary cessation of free intercourse in winter 
acts as a check to commercial development in some 
directions, but it is far from being all loss. In the forest- 
covered parts of the country especially, it is balanced 
by great industrial conveniences. 

After the prairies, British Columbia with its moun- 
tains and the Pacific coast. The mountains, range 
behind range, stretch over a breadth of 500 or 600 
miles. They presented a serious geographical barrier 
to the political unification of Canada. The obstacle 
has been triumphantly overcome, and in reality proved 
a useful test for the strength of the forces which made 
for unity. This vast mountain district lends itself but 
slightly to agricultural settlement, but it, too, as I shall 
have to show, will hold an important place in the economic 



intro. Introductory 



development of the Dominion. The Pacific frontage has 
not the profound indentations of the Atlantic side of the 
Dominion. Numberless lesser ones, however, together 
with the many islands, great and small, scattered along 
its whole length, give it, too, a quite remarkable extent 
of coast line, which has been estimated at 7,000 miles. 
The harbours are numerous and excellent, and the 
warm currents of the Pacific keep them free from ice 
all the year round. They furnish Canada with an open 
gateway to the commerce of the Pacific. 

Such, in broadest outline, are the geographical 
features which must dominate the development of 
Canada; which will mainly influence the industries, 
the character, and the tendencies of its people. They 
open up a large field for study and speculation. 

It need sea ^ly be added that in regions so vast and 
various Nature is often seen in her most splendid and 
picturesque aspects. The traveller who has penetrated 
the Selkirk and Rocky ranges of British Columbia ; 
who has explored the magnificent surroundings of the 
National Park at Banff ; who has crossed the thousand 
miles of North- Western prairie ; who has traversed 
the expanse of the great inland lakes ; who has stood 
beside the Horseshoe Fall at Niagara and traced the 
course of the mighty gorge below ; who has sailed amid 
the Thousand Isles and through the swirling rapids of 
the St. Lawrence ; who has looked down from the 
heights of the Mountain at Montreal; from the 
promontory on which stand the Parliament Buildings 
at Ottawa; and from the lofty terrace of historic 



8 The Great Dominion 



INTRO. 



Quebec, has seen some of the most striking and 
impressive scenery of the world. Doubtless such 
surroundings may have a profound influence in mould- 
ing the character of a people. Canada is a country 
which certainly stirs the imagination of her children — 
which begets in them an intense love of the soil. If 
the front which nature sometimes presents to them is 
severe, it is also noble and impressive. In the breadth 
of its spaces, the headlong rush of its floods, the 
majesty of its mountain heights and canon depths, and 
the striking contrasts of its seasons in their march 
through the fervid warmth of summer, the glory of 
autumnal colouring, and the dazzling splendour of a 
snow-covered land to the sudden burst of new and 
radiant life in spring — in all these, Canada has char- 
acteristics unique among the many lands under the 
British flag. There are those who believe that it is a 
country peculiarly fitted to rear a people whose northern 
vigour will give them weight in the world, and will add 
strength and character to the nation of which they form 
a part. But it is with the practical facts of Canadian 
life, rather than its ideals, that we have now chiefly to 
deal. 



CHAPTER I 



THE NORTH-WEST 



Among the Canadian problems which may fairly 
be regarded as of national interest, I am disposed to 
place foremost those connected with the growth and 
settlement of the vast provinces of the North- West. 
These provinces are sure, sooner or later, to be filled 
with a population of many millions of people, English- 
speaking, and for the most part of British blood. To 
emigrants from the United Kingdom they now offer 
the most readily accessible areas in the Empire where 
homestead lands can still be easily acquired. They 
equally offer abundant lands to those foreign emigrants 
who are willing to add to the strength of the Empire 
by adopting British citizenship. The extent to which 
this process of assimilating energetic and useful 
material from other races is being carried on in Canada, 
as in the other colonies, may be strikingly shown by a 
single illustration. Within the last few years Manitoba 
and the North- West have absorbed nearly 10,000 of 
the industrious and intelligent inhabitants of Iceland, 
who have voluntarily become most useful, loyal, and 



io The Great Dominion 



CHAP. 



satisfactory British subjects. This migration is still 
going on, and it seems not unlikely that a considerable 
proportion of the population of that interesting island 
will ultimately be transferred to British soil. 

Increasing population in these vacant areas means 
increased powers of production in directions which 
intimately concern British consumers. It is only eight 
or nine years since railway communication was fully 
established with the North- West, but already wheat 
from Manitoba farms and cattle from Alberta ranches 
are finding their way to the English market in in- 
creasing volume. Any one who studies existing con- 
ditions, who sees how comparatively small is the area 
as yet occupied, who observes the facility with which 
production may be increased, will, I think, be convinced 
that the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence, and Canadian 
railway systems will soon be the channels for an 
immense outflow of food products directed towards 
Britain. The inevitable pressure of consumption upon 
production in the United States, hitherto the chief 
source of British importation, gives peculiar interest to 
this question of Canadian food supply ; the filling up, 
moreover, of these vast territories with an adequate 
population is almost essential to the complete con- 
solidation of that remarkable, but as yet not fully 
appreciated, maritime position which is secured to the 
Empire by the fact that the Dominion rests with com- 
manding outlook upon both the Atlantic and the 
Pacific, where these oceans respectively furnish the 
shortest and easiest access from the American continent 



The North- West 1 1 



to Europe and Asia. Just as the middle and western 
States bind New England and the east to the Pacific 
States, so the filling up of the North-West will complete 
the cohesion between the Atlantic and the Pacific 
provinces of Canada. 

Wishing to form an estimate of the progress and 
prospects of the North -West, of its food-producing 
capacity, and of the conditions of settlement, I elected 
to visit the country at a season not usually considered 
favourable. Friends in England and Canada alike 
reproached me for not planning to reach the prairies 
in time to see the wonderful prospect afforded by the 
wide stretches of waving grain. But we know that 
in all countries not only the promise of spring verdure 
and of summer growth, but also of early autumn 
ripening, may be blighted by rain or drought or frost, 
and so I preferred to visit the North-West in the late 
autumn and early winter, when the farmer had got 
down to the bed rock of reality ; when his stacks had 
been threshed and the grain measured or sold ; when 
he was preparing to face the winter and was carrying 
on the operations necessary to make the work of the 
spring most effective. If such a time for studying a 
country lacks some elements of the picturesque, it has 
interest equal to any other, and perhaps more of 
instruction. 

A new and strange sense of vastness grows upon the 
mind as one travels day after day over the prairies, with 
the distant sky-line as the chief object which fixes the 
eye. The impression is different from that produced 



12 The Great Dominion chap. 



by wide space at sea, for the imagination at once 
begins to fill up these enormous areas with homes and 
busy inhabitants. At first sight it seems only necessary 
to pour out population over these vast spaces in any 
direction. This is soon found to be a mistake. There 
are lands good, bad, and middling. Some districts are 
more subject to frost than others. There are areas 
where the soil is excellent, but where at some seasons 
water in sufficient abundance is wanting. There is 
alkali land in the far West, where the great American 
desert pushes northward a considerable offshoot. One 
limited district there is where, from some peculiar 
configuration of the country, hail is an almost annual 
infliction, and where, as in Dakota, the hail insurance 
companies build up a business. All this is in the 
midst of an extent of good farming land well nigh 
incalculable. In such circumstances the first, second, 
and third duty of those who would settle the country 
is manifestly to reduce the business of land selection 
as closely as may be to an exact science. To allow any 
settler in the North-West to go upon land which is 
not the best available is a gross mistake. The railway 
companies and the Government- are beginning to 
realize this too long neglected truth. Lands are now 
carefully surveyed and their characteristics noted. 
Skilled pioneers are invited to precede parties of 
emigrants and make careful choice. The Canadian 
Pacific Railway Company challenges investigations of 
its lands and gives free passes to those who wish to 
examine them with a view to settlement. It sends out 



The North- West 



experienced agents to assist the individual settler in 
making a choice. All this is having a good effect, and 
is correcting the mistakes of earlier days. The trouble 
taken will be well repaid, for of all emigration agents 
the contented settler is by far the best. It is from 
him that the North- West is now getting its best 
impulse. The steamship in which I crossed the 
Atlantic was carrying many emigrants, chiefly Scottish, 
to Manitoba and the Territories. It was satisfactory 
to find that in most cases they were going on the 
recommendation of friends who had preceded them. 
Often in the Far West I met with men and women 
who were saving their money to bring out relatives, 
or even, in some cases, going home to induce them 
to come out. Emigration effected in this way is of the 
healthiest kind, and is the best recommendation that 
a country can have. 

While the rush of emigration has not been so great 
as the sanguine hopes of the early settlers led them to 
anticipate, the progress made seems to the ordinary 
observer very great. It is, as I have already said, only 
eight or nine years since the main railway line across 
the continent was completed. A glance at a good 
railway map shows how rapidly branch lines have been 
pushed for many hundred miles in various directions, 
as settlement justified their construction. What the 
traveller sees in a journey over some of these branch 
lines furnishes the best proof of the progress of the 
country. From Winnipeg I went over the Southern 
Manitoba road to Estevan, the point to which it was 



14 The Great Dominion chap. 

at that time completed, and thence back to rejoin the 
main line at Brandon, in all a distance of nearly 500 
miles. At intervals of ten or twelve miles over nearly 
all this distance prosperous little towns are springing 
up, each equipped with two, three, or four elevators to 
deal with the grain raised in the surrounding districts. 
Wheat was being shipped rapidly at the time, and these 
elevators were usually surrounded by teams waiting to 
deliver their loads. Huge stacks of straw, soon to be 
burned for want of any better use, showed where the 
grain had been threshed in the fields where it was grown. 
In the latter part of October the deliveries of wheat at 
Fort William alone amounted to a thousand carloads 
per week, and the railroads were finding it difficult to 
deal with all that was offered. For 1891 the whole 
North-Western production was estimated at between 
twenty-two and twenty-three million bushels. A good 
deal was then injured or lost through the difficulty of 
dealing with an exceptionally heavy crop in the absence 
of a sufficient supply of labour. For 1892 the output 
was between fifteen and sixteen million bushels, but the 
average quality was much higher than in 1891, and the 
crop was generally saved in good condition. For 1893 
and 1894 the aggregate production showed a large 
increase over 1892. As the yield per acre has not in 
either year been more than an average one, the advance 
is due to increasing population and a wider acreage. 
It is from considering these figures and then remem- 
bering how short is the time since no wheat for ex* 
portation was produced that we get an idea of the rapid 



i The North- West 15 

change which is passing over the country. The peculiar 
conditions of cultivation on the prairies make it 
possible to effect changes in five years which in most 
countries would require the work of a whole generation. 
On the Canada Alliance farm, once a part of the large 
colonization estate of 42,000 acres in the Qu'Appelle 
Valley, in which Lord Brassey is chiefly interested, I 
saw an illustration of the speedy way in which the 
virgin prairie can be made ready for a crop. In May, 
1890, not a sod had been broken on the farm. In 1892 
1,500 acres at least were under crop, with 500 acres 
additional of summer fallowing. ■ Between June, when 
the farm seeding closed, and September, when harvest 
began, a new block of 700 acres was made perfectly ready 
for the next spring sowing in April. The operations 
consisted of a first ploughing, in which a very thin sod 
is turned from the virgin prairie, and then, when this is 
completed, the backset, or second deeper ploughing. 
Careful harrowing follows, after which the soil is as 
completely prepared for the seed drills as in the best 
English farming. At an adjoining farm, lately set off 
from the same estate, 800 acres were ready for seeding 
where not a sod had been turned the previous spring. 
It probably costs between five and six dollars (£1 to 
£1 5s.) per acre to prepare land as thoroughly as that 
which I examined at Qu'Appelle. I heard of cases where, 
under a rougher system of farming, land was made ready 
at much less cost. A man with two yoke of oxen and a 
gang plough breaks up a quarter section (160 acres) 
during five spring and summer months, and the whole 



1 6 The Great Dominion chap. 

expense per acre is less than three dollars (12s. 6d). 
The rapidity and cheapness of preparation strike the 
observer forcibly after he has watched the slow processes 
by which farms are made in the forests of Eastern 
Canada or British Columbia, in New Zealand bush, 
among Tasmanian and Australian gum trees, or by re- 
claiming waste lands in England or Scotland. Mani- 
festly any considerable application of capital or a large 
inflow of farming population might, under such con- 
ditions, increase the wheat output very rapidly. 

Farms carried on by companies on a large scale are 
still on their trial in the North- West. Some have proved 
unremunerative. One of those to which I have referred 
has begun to pay very satisfactory dividends, and there 
is no apparent reason why it should be an exceptional 
case. Everything depends upon honesty and thorough- 
ness of management. The watchful eye of the small 
owner seems on the whole the most reliable means of 
stopping leakages, for which there are many oppor- 
tunities on a large estate, and which are fatal in a time 
of keen farming competition. On the other hand, great 
savings are often effected by a sufficient command of 
capital, in which the company has an advantage over 
the small farmer. 

Another point seems worth mentioning. One of the 
keenest observers of men in Canada told me that in his 
opinion there would always be one barrier to successful 
company farming in the West. " Able management," 
he said, "is a necessity, and a man competent to 
manage successfully a great farm will not continue to 



The North- West 17 



work for a salary in a country which offers so many 
opportunities for private enterprise." My own observa- 
tion leads me to think that the men are few and far 
between who are at once able enough and reliable 
enough to fill such posts. 

Instances occur here and there through Manitoba 
and the territories of men who have begun in the small 
way on a quarter or half section, and with increasing 
prosperity and enlarged experience have gradually 
widened their operations till they were farming on a 
great scale. But they were working entirely on their 
own behalf. Lord Brassey's experience appears to have 
led him to decide against the large farm as the ideal 
method of dealing with prairie lands. After personal 
examination of the question he has determined to break 
up his large block of country into small farms, giving 
every facility for purchase on easy terms, advancing to 
selected settlers at a low rate of interest money suffi- 
cient for buildings and outfit, and allowing payments to 
extend over several years. Such is his faith in the 
country that he believes that this system, which seems 
to offer great advantages to the poor but enterprising 
settler, can be carried on without financial loss to him- 
self. Whether by large proprietors or small, however, 
the north-western prairies have a capacity for rapid 
increase of production which might speedily become 
very great under any exigency of demand. 

I pause here to guard against a possible misappre- 
hension. It must not be thought that the rapid increase 
of wheat production in the North- West has hitherto 

c 



1 8 The Great Dominion chap. 

meant a correspondingly large surplus for export from 
Canada as a whole. As the output of the newly opened 
western areas has increased, that of the eastern pro- 
vinces, where cereals are not produced without careful 
culture, has diminished. Quebec and all the maritime 
provinces make a heavy demand, for their own con- 
sumption, upon the surplus product of the West. 
Ontario, as the result of the drop in wheat prices, is 
gradually changing from a wheat-producing to a dairy- 
ing country. Thus, though Manitoba and the territories 
show a large increase of production, Canada's export as 
a whole does not enlarge with corresponding rapidity. 

Only a large addition to population in the West can 
make it do this. But given this inflow of population, 
and such a rise in price as makes wheat growing profit- 
able, and there is scarcely any limit to the possibility 
of production in the Dominion. The area of Manitoba 
and the territories of Assiniboia, Alberta and Saskat- 
chewan is 360,000 square miles, or 230,000,000 acres. 
It has been estimated, and, I think, not unfairly, that 
one-half of this is either good or workable wheat land. 
Yet of all this vast area little more than a million acres 
are now under actual cultivation for wheat. 

The extent of land which the small farmer can profit- 
ably hold and cultivate is a question of some interest. 

In travelling through Eastern Canada the impression 
constantly left upon the mind is that the average 
farmer clears up more land than is necessary and is 
wrestling with a larger area than he can properly till. 
If eastern experience be taken as a guide, then for the 



i The North- West 19 

man of the West an ordinary quarter section, which con- 
tains 160 acres, is quite enough for a single holding, and 
this is the amount usually taken up. 

But it is maintained by some that for the most 
successful farming in the North- West it is necessary to 
work two sets of fields, and for this two quarter 
sections, or 320 acres, are required. 

Senator Perley, who for many years has made a close 
practical study of North-Western farming, stated to 
me the arguments for this course. The first object is 
to get abundant opportunity for summer fallowing, 
which, he holds, is better than fall ploughing, inasmuch 
as it not only clears the land of weeds, but rests it ; 
can be done when the farmer has more time, and 
from peculiar conditions about the retention of mois- 
ture ensures a better crop. Of this ideal farm of 320 
acres, 200 acres should be arable, one-half being kept 
under crop, and the other half under summer fallow. 
The remaining 120 acres will suffice for pasturage and 
hay. Senator Perley believes that the 160 acre farm 
now commonly taken up will, as the country gets more 
settled, prove insufficient. Free pasturage on un- 
occupied land makes it appear enough now, but this 
condition will change rapidly. Even now the ordinary 
farmer is far from anxious that settlers should take up 
the blocks adjoining to himself, since, through exclusion 
from pasturage, he at once feels the pressure. The 
question is one that the intending settler should take 
into careful consideration, since a false start is not 
always easily remedied. 



2o The Great Dominion chap. 



The North- Western farmer has his special difficulties 
to contend with. Here, as elsewhere, man learns by 
slow degrees to wrestle successfully with the problems 
of nature, and he does so by studying them and adapt- 
ing himself to new conditions. The key to successful 
farming in the North-West consists in knowing how to 
meet the dangers of frost. To this end the farmer must 
prepare during the autumn for the work of the spring. 
Abundance of fall ploughing is a necessity of the 
country. The moment the harvest is off the fields the 
plough is turned on, and it must be kept at work until 
stopped by the freezing of the ground. Then with the 
earliest April warmth seeding may begin at once. No- 
where does the first fortnight of spring count for 
so much. Farmers once thought it necessary, as in 
other climates, to wait till the frost was out of the 
ground to begin sowing. Now they sow when barely 
an inch or two of ground is thawed, sufficient to allow 
the seed to be covered. After that the lack of spring 
showers, very common in the West, makes no difference, 
for the frost as it thaws furnishes moisture to the roots, 
while the hot inland sun forces on growth with great 
rapidity. Thus the frost which threatens the wheat 
becomes also its salvation. It is under such conditions 
that the No. 1 hard Manitoba wheat, pronounced 
by experts to be the best in the world, is grown. 

Still, after all that the farmer can do, allowance must 
always be made in the North- West for a proportion of 
frozen wheat, though the quantity will decrease, as 
experience shows, with the cultivation of the country, 



i The North-West 21 

the drainage of lands, and the increase of skill in farm- 
ing. But the term " frozen wheat," which suggests to 
most minds the entire destruction of the crop as 
a mercantile commodity, means nothing like this 
to the North- Western farmer. Slightly frosted wheat 
is reduced for flour-making purposes perhaps 30 per 
cent in value, what is called frozen wheat 50 per cent. 
Both are freely used by millers to make a cheaper kind 
of flour. But many experiments have now proved that 
they are open to a much more profitable use. It has 
been shown that frozen wheat, fed to pigs and cattle, is 
worth much more than when sold for milling purposes. 
The result of a series of tests made at the experimental 
farm at Brandon has been published. Fed to pigs the 
frozen wheat was found to realize 49 cents per bushel ; 
fed to fattening steers from 56 to 68 cents in different 
trials. Other private and public tests give results 
somewhat similar. These prices are nearly double the 
market rate at which the wheat could be sold. In facts 
like these lies one of the chief arguments for greater 
attention to mixed farming than has yet been given to 
it in the North-West. With pigs, cattle, and sheep 
around him the farmer could choose between selling his 
inferior wheat at a greatly reduced price, and turning it 
into pork, beef, butter, and other products, for which 
there are always good prices and a steady demand. In 
the production of pork, especially, it is claimed by good 
authorities that the opportunity is very great. Taking 
the relative value of pork and wheat during the last two 
or three years there is some reason to think that it would 



22 The Gi'eat Dominion 



CHAP. 



have been more profitable if every bushel even of the 
very best wheat had been fed to pigs and cattle rather 
than exported. The wheat-fed pork of the North-West 
may yet compete with the maize-fed pork of Chicago. 
So, too, in the case of poultry. With its abundance of 
refuse grain and large areas of stubble, no country 
ought to produce turkeys and other fowl more abun- 
dantly and cheaply. 

At present there is unquestionably a great deal of 
waste. At Moosomin I went with a friend to study for 
the first time the construction and watch the operation 
of a grain elevator. The man in charge, in order to show 
us the working of the machinery, proceeded to get up 
steam, and to this end began shovelling into the furnace 
the screenings of the elevator. They consisted of inferior 
wheat mingled with the oily seeds of weeds, and he told 
us that this was almost the only fuel that he had used 
for two years. It made an excellent fire, but manifestly 
would also have made excellent food for cattle, pigs, 
or poultry, if properly prepared. At other places I 
found that the farmers were allowed to take back from 
the elevators, to feed their poultry, any quantity of 
the screenings they chose to remove, merely that it 
might be got rid of. Large manufacturers in Yorkshire 
and Lancashire have told me that in these days of 
competition their profits were often made from saving 
material which a generation ago was allowed to go 
to waste. The Manitoba farmer might take a leaf from 
their notebooks. 

The enormous quantities of straw burned in the 



The North- West 



fields ought also to have some economic value, consider- 
ing the uses to which it is applied in other countries. 
The abundance of easily obtained prairie hay now takes 
away its use as fodder, and, till mixed farming prevails, 
it cannot even be used to enlarge the manure heap. 

But the North-Western farmer takes to mixed 
farming slowly and reluctantly. For this there is at 
present more than one reason. Labour is often scarce 
and expensive, and the attention to detail required 
in mixed farming is therefore rendered difficult. 
Fencing is necessary with a variety of stock, and 
fencing in some parts of the treeless prairie country 
is expensive. On the other hand, there is something 
of the temptation of gambling in wheat raising. With 
a good season, large crops, and a favourable price, the 
profits from a few hundred acres of wheat land are 
very large. As far as one could learn from rather 
extensive inquiry, the production varies all the way 
from fifteen to forty bushels per acre, according to the 
nature of the soil and season. The price, too, has 
varied in different years from 55c. to $1 per bushel for 
the best grade of grain. In such circumstances the 
temptation to speculate on the chances of the year is 
very great. As long, however, as the farmers of the 
North- West stake so much upon a single product, so 
long must they be prepared for great fluctuations of 
prosperity. Wheat, in sympathy with prices all over 
the world, has never been so low as during the last 
two years. I found many a farmer in Manitoba who 
was getting only 55c. a bushel for his wheat, paying 



24 The Great Dominion chap. 

at the same time high prices for pork, beef, butter, and 
other necessary articles of food, brought from Ontario 
and the United States. That this is bad farming, for 
which there can be no sufficient excuse, is a lesson 
which is being slowly but certainly learned. When 
it has been thoroughly learned — when mixed farming 
is the rule rather than the exception — I believe that 
the permanent prosperity of the North-Western farming 
interest is assured. This was the opinion I found held 
by men with long experience of the country, such as 
Governor Schultz and Mr. Greenway, the Premier of 
Manitoba. It is scarcely too much to say that if the 
depression in the price of wheat during the last three 
years, sore as is the strain which it has put on the 
North-Western farmer, drive him into making the most 
of farming opportunities outside of wheat-raising, a 
healthier condition of things will have been brought 
about in the country. The risk from frost, if faced with 
far-sighted energy, does not seem to me so great as the 
risk from drought in Australia — scarcely greater than 
the risk from a prolonged wet season in Great Britain. 
Hence I believe that this vast country will gradually be 
filled up with a prosperous farming population. The 
cold winter is not seriously dreaded by the people, and 
the other seasons give great climatic compensations. 
During the whole month of October, while I was going 
westward over the prairies, there was not a drop of rain, 
while the perfect sunshine which prevailed week after 
week furnished a striking contrast to the reports of 
storm and wet and cold which came from England. As 



The North- West 25 



I journeyed eastward some weeks later winter was 
settling down on the land, and at Winnipeg the ther- 
mometer had already been at 20 degrees below zero. 
But there were the same bright sky and sunshine, and 
the clear cold seemed to give an added activity to 
people's steps and a buoyancy to their spirits. 



CHAPTER II 

the north-west — continued 

What has been said in the previous chapter about the 
North- West had reference chiefly to the comparatively 
treeless prairie country which has hitherto been the prin- 
cipal area of wheat culture. It would be a great mistake, 
however, to suppose that North- Western Canada con- 
sists exclusively of level prairie. Westward from 
Manitoba along the Qu'Appelle, northward on the 
Saskatchewan, and all along the eastern slope of the 
Rocky Mountains are vast regions of a partly wooded, 
partly grass-covered country, park-like in appearance, 
undulating for the most part, and with striking varia- 
tions of scenery formed by the grouping of mountain, 
hill, lake, and river. 

Country of this kind will always have for many 
settlers attractions which they do not find in the abso- 
lutely level prairie — attractions for which no richness 
of soil or ease of culture can compensate. Parts of 
these regions, while admirably suited for ranching, are, 
without irrigation, less fitted for agriculture. This is 
true of considerable districts in the vicinity of Calgary, 



chap, ii The North-West 27 

where, however, the opportunities for irrigation are ex- 
cellent, and only await the application of capital and 
skill. 

Altogether the area of the semi-arid country where 
irrigation is occasionally necessary, or would give greater 
security to agriculture year by year, has been estimated 
to extend between 300 and 400 miles east and west, 
and more than a hundred miles north and south. 
Large as this area seems it is a mere bagatelle in the 
vast spaces of the North-West, and is, in reality, only a 
small spur of the corresponding area in the United 
States, wholly or partly arid ; an area which has been 
estimated to cover more than a million square miles. 
Settlers in this district have been rather slow to admit to 
themselves that their part of the country labours under 
any farming disability, or is liable to peculiar risks. 
But it is better to face facts, and there is much reason 
to think that the lands of this region will be among the 
very best and the most profitable to work when irriga- 
tion has been secured. This has been American expe- 
rience in California, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, and many 
other states where similar conditions prevail. One 
large district has already been selected for settlement 
by immigrants from Utah, accustomed in that state to 
deal with similar difficulties. The land department of 
the Canadian Pacific Railway is preparing to irrigate 
from the Bow River a plateau of about 1,000,000 acres 
near Medicine Hat, and steps of a like kind are being 
taken by smaller companies. Between the years 1877 
and 1891, according to an official statement, 17,000,000 



28 The Great Dominion chap. 

acres of land were put under ditch, and nearly 14,000 
artesian wells sunk for irrigation purposes in the arid 
regions of the United States. Such a statement shows 
how little need there is to regard the partial aridity of 
the districts I have mentioned as a deterrent to agri- 
cultural enterprise, or as a permanent barrier to agri- 
cultural success. Still it has hampered early progress. 
Other parts seem suited alike for grazing and agri- 
culture. It is difficult to speak with anything short of 
enthusiasm of the appearance and apparent possibilities 
of one vast region which is now attracting much 
attention and to which a very considerable stream 
of settlers has already set in. The railway lately 
opened for a distance of about 200 miles from Calgary 
to Edmonton gives easy access to one part of this 
country; the line between Regina and Prince Albert 
to another. Between these points and both north and 
south of the Saskatchewan are areas which nature 
seems to have specially adapted for that mixed farming 
which I have mentioned as being the most reliable and 
satisfactory. There are numerous streams, large and 
small, of excellent water. The nutritious native grasses, 
once the only food of millions of buffalo, turn naturally 
into good hay as they stand, and, as in the purely 
ranching districts, give winter as well as summer food 
to horses, which are accustomed to pawing away the 
snow, and to cattle as well, when the snow is not deep 
on the ground. Abundant shelter for cattle is furnished 
by the valleys and woodland bluffs, and the latter 
supply also material for fencing and fuel. Of other 



ii The North- West 29 

abundant fuel I shall have occasion to speak when 
considering the coal supplies of the Dominion. 

In a drive over a northern portion of this territory, 
from Edmonton to St. Albert, I was struck with the 
signs of prosperity which followed even the careless 
farming of the half-breeds who have for some time 
occupied this district. Wide fields of wheat stubble., 
herds of sleek cattle in the fields, droves of fat pigs 
around the stacks of straw in the farmyards, flocks of 
poultry, all told of plenty to support in comfort a people 
content to live chiefly on the produce of their own farms. 
I cannot but think that this whole range of country 
offers great and varied inducements to hardy settlers, 
and would yield a rich reward to those who brought 
industry and intelligence to the work of farming. It is 
sure to be filled ultimately with a prosperous popula- 
tion, whether the process of settlement goes on slowly 
or rapidly. 

Of the extent of territory capable of successful settle- 
ment still further north, in the direction of the Peace 
River, no one as yet even attempts to form an estimate. 
There is already abundant evidence to show that the 
deep northward bend of the isothermal lines which 
occurs as we approach the Rocky Mountains upsets 
entirely all calculations based on the idea that latitude 
alone determines climate. How far this fact enlarges 
the supposed scope of agricultural settlement in Canada 
is one of the interesting problems of the future. Our 
present concern, however, is with lands actually in the 
process of settlement. 



^o The Great Dominion chap. 

Turning from the farming to the grazing districts, 
we find that the ranching industry, in Alberta especially, 
has in a few years grown to large dimensions. It is 
carried on chiefly by the aid of English capital and 
under English direction. At Calgary I found an inter- 
esting experiment being carried out with a view of 
reaching distant markets rapidly and effectually. Large 
numbers of cattle from the Cochrane Ranch were being 
killed in abattoirs at Calgary, and the chilled beef was 
being sent to the cities of Eastern Canada in cars 
specially arranged for the purpose. The meat was 
received at Montreal and Ottawa in perfect condition, 
competing successfully with the best that local markets 
could supply. It is claimed that, with improved trans- 
port arrangements, this is by far the best way in which 
to carry the products of the ranches to English markets 
as well. Some ardent believers in the system think 
that the scheduling of Canadian cattle, by compelling 
the use of new methods, may prove to the Canadian 
farmer a blessing in disguise. In 1872 Canada had 
exported no meat, live or dead, to Great Britain. The 
numbers of live cattle sent had already risen in 1891 
beyond a hundred thousand annually, and yet this does 
not represent more than a fifth of what the British 
market absorbs. A special class of ships has been 
designed to meet the wants of this great trade, which 
has become a considerable factor in the prosperity of 
several British ports as well as Canadian, and in the 
success of steamship and railway systems. Horses have 
not as yet been exported in large numbers to Britain, 



ii The North-West 31 

but the stock on the ranches has increased rapidly, and 
the wants of the British market are now being carefully 
studied. Lately an experiment has been made in 
transferring numbers of choice horses from the ranches 
to Ontario farms, whence, after being thoroughly broken, 
they are brought to England for sale. That it only 
pays to bring to the English market horses of the best 
quality is a point now well understood. 

The ranching of the North- West, like its farming, 
has had its entire development within the last ten years. 
Experience has been painfully acquired : the ranchman 
has had many fluctuations of prosperity, and has felt 
his way slowly towards success. The best accessible 
information indicates that the industry is now estab- 
lished on a permanent and fairly satisfactory basis. 
Between Western ranches and Eastern farms it seems 
clear that Canada will more and more become a chief 
source of meat supply for the United Kingdom. 

The clear, cool climate of the Dominion has proved 
exceptionally favourable to the health of cattle, and the 
scheduling which has been enforced for some time rests 
upon evidence so doubtful that the order will probably 
soon be withdrawn. The Alberta ranches, however, do 
not depend entirely upon the British market or that of 
Eastern Canada. They contribute to the supply of the 
mining regions of the Rocky Mountains, and this 
promises to be an outlet of increasing importance. 

What has now been said shows to how great an 
extent the Canadian North- West depends upon its 
agricultural interests. Alike in the areas principally 



2,2 The Great Dominion chap. 

devoted to wheat culture, in those where from the first 
mixed farming predominates, and in the ranching 
districts, the present and prospective prosperity of the 
country will consist in finding an adequate market for 
a large surplus of food products. This broad fact should 
be kept constantly in mind, since it cannot but exer- 
cise a decisive influence on the future policy of the 
Dominion. 

I have as yet said nothing about the towns of the 
North- West. These must always furnish some index 
to the general prosperity of the country around them. 
Winnipeg, as is well known, after springing up with 
wonderful rapidity in the first years of settlement, 
suffered a violent reaction as the result of over specu- 
lation in business, and especially in real estate. The 
truth is that the inflow of farming population never 
matched the expectations of those who first went to 
Manitoba ; the city increased in size beyond the 
necessities of the province, and so was compelled to 
wait some years for the latter to overtake it. Now 
the period of stagnation is past, and Winnipeg is 
making a steady and healthy growth. The constantly- 
increasing mileage of railway lines which centre at 
the city mark out for it an assured and large future. 
Not such a future, however, as Toronto or Montreal, 
for Winnipeg is without their immediate access to 
navigation, the key to great development, but still to 
stand at the gateway of the North-West, and to become 
its commercial, social and educational capital is no 
mean outlook. Brandon, too, is becoming a considerable 



ii The North- West 33 

railway centre; much building is going on, and the 
smaller town is anxious to secure from the railway 
companies the same advantages as a wholesale distri- 
buting point which Winnipeg now enjoys. From both 
Regina and Calgary railway systems extend north and 
south, and both have a prevailing air of substantial 
prosperity. I have before referred to the numerous 
small but nourishing towns which spring up along 
every new line of railway. None of these depends 
upon manufactures ; all owe their existence to the 
increasing wealth of the surrounding agricultural 
country, and furnish the most conclusive proof of its 
producing capacity. One remark about all North- 
western towns should not be omitted. In them life 
is as safe, property as secure, and the ordinary su- 
premacy of law as complete as in the old towns of 
Eastern Canada, or in the country towns and villages 
of England and Scotland. This advantage over the 
western towns of the United States the country owes 
in part to the greater slowness of growth which is so 
often complained of, and to the natural selection of 
population effected by a northern climate — partly, no 
doubt, to superiority of judicial and social institutions. 
It is no small thing that the North- West can offer to 
every immigrant all the social security to which he 
has been accustomed in the oldest communities. 

A larger population is unquestionably the greatest 
need of the country. While, however, there is at 
present a strong popular demand for a vigorous immi- 
gration policy on the part of the Government, I have 

D 



34 The Great Dominion chap. 

found that this demand is always qualified by the 
opinion that numbers should not be purchased at the 
expense of quality. Should restraints be placed upon 
undesirable immigration by the United States, Canada 
will scarcely welcome what her neighbours refuse. 
But there are strong reasons for thinking that the 
North-West has now gained a stage of development 
and established for itself a name which will draw to it 
a steady and sufficient inflow of the most desirable 
population. 

What are the classes of settlers who succeed and 
seem best fitted for the North- West ? On the whole 
one is inclined to describe it as essentially a country 
for the poor man or the man with a moderate amount 
of means. Alberta, with its ranches, and some of the 
prairie districts, such as the Qu'Appelle Valley, with 
opportunities for farms on a large scale, furnish openings 
for the successful use of larger capital ; but men who 
themselves work the land are what the country chiefly 
requires, and to them it will prove most satisfactory. 
Among these the advantage certainly lies with immi- 
grants who have had some previous practical acquaint- 
ance with the farming conditions of the Canadian 
climate, or of a climate similar to it. They begin at 
once to make crops grow, which the unskilled immi- 
grant rarely does. Settlers from the Eastern Provinces 
or from the more Northern States easily adapt them- 
selves to the conditions of the country ; so on the 
whole does the Scottish labourer. The English and 
Irish farm hand has less flexibility for change, but he, 



The North- West 35 



too, succeeds by dint of pluck and industry. Among 
foreigners the Icelander easily takes the first place, in 
virtue of his sobriety, industry, and frugality. The 
Scandinavian does well, and the plodding German. 
The North-West will never be a congenial home for 
the Italian and other Latin races. These naturally 
gravitate towards the warm southern and middle por- 
tions of the United States or towards South America 
I heard very grave doubts expressed about the success 
of one or two colonies of Russian Jews. The difficulty 
in this case was attributed to inherent disinclination 
to agricultural pursuits. It may have been quite as 
much due to the fact that as emigrants they had too 
much assistance. The experience of the North-West 
shows that extraordinary care is required to make a 
success of assisted emigration. Lord Brassey has dis- 
cussed in the columns of The Times the comparative 
failure of his first efforts to make easy the path of the 
emigrant on the colonization estate in which he is con- 
cerned. It was interesting to find that most of the 
men who appear to have been discontented, if not idle, 
when receiving aid, have become comparatively suc- 
cessful when thrown entirely upon their own resources 
and compelled to work in their own way. This I 
learned on very good authority. Lord Brassey 's 
enthusiasm for promoting colonization has now wisely 
been turned, as I have before mentioned, to giving in- 
direct encouragement rather than direct aid to settlers. 
The consideration of this point leads up to a larger 
question. 

D 2 



36 The Great Dominion chap. 

To speak broadly, it must be said that the young 
Englishman of the better classes sent out to the North- 
West to be a farmer is not a success. The consensus of 
opinion which I discovered among practical men upon 
this point was very striking, and the general statement is 
not disproved by many exceptions. The labouring man 
coming from the Eastern Provinces or from the Old 
Country to the West, with scarcely a dollar of capital 
will in a few years be a fairly prosperous and contented 
settler, with a good farm and an increasing stock. The 
young Englishman, coming with the apparent advan- 
tage of some capital, and a quarterly or half-yearly 
remittance from home, at the end of the same time 
has not got nearly so far — he has less land under 
cultivation, often he is in debt and more or less dis- 
contented, execrating the country, and preventing a 
more suitable class of emigrants from coming to it. 
Wellington thought that Waterloo was won on the 
playing fields of Eton. The public-school life of the 
young Englishman develops qualities which make him 
a good soldier or sailor, but not a good farmer ; it gives 
him the spirit and dash of the racer for physical labour, 
not the patient force of the draught horse. And, after 
all, the farmer must be the steady draught horse of the 
social system. 

Often it is not the strongest fibre which is sent out 
from the better class of English homes, the market for 
all that is excellent being best at home. No greater 
mistake can be made by English parents than to think 
that a North-Western life may prove a corrective for 



ii The North-West $j 

tendencies to dissipation. The very opposite result 
flows naturally from the absence of social restraint. 
" Perfect devils to drink " was the description given by 
an Edmonton hotel-keeper of two young Englishmen 
who happened to be with him at the moment, and with 
money to spend furnished by a new remittance. " Rum- 
punch all the morning, then brandy and soda till three 
or four, when they are paralysed and have to sleep some 
hours, then whiskey-toddy till bed -time." And he 
offered to show them to us in his bar-room in any of 
these stages of inebriation. An extreme case, no doubt, 
but pathetic enough to think of. A good deal of the 
loafing around hotels and bar-rooms in the North- West 
is done by young Englishmen, and the term " remittance 
man " tends to become an expression of contempt. If 
these men must come out, let the extra ladies of the 
family come to exercise their better influence over them. 
They will be as well employed as in slumming or 
parish work at home, and they will be giving what the 
North- West wants — something of England's best to 
leaven social life. One never meets in the West an 
Englishwoman who is not a centre of wholesome and 
refining influence. It would, indeed, be a boon to the 
country if the same were true of every son of an English 
gentleman who goes to it. 

There are numbers, of course, who, according to their 
lights, are trying to do their best. But public-school life 
in England creates a very strong desire to mingle sport 
with work in after life, and often the prominence, on 
the whole, is given to sport. Conditions in the North- 



38 The Great Dominion chap. 

West will not at present admit of thus mingling 
employment. It is the persistent worker who succeeds 
there. The remittance which is intended to help too 
often tends to weaken. In the North- West Mounted 
Police young Englishmen have done well. The military 
discipline and the life on horseback in the open air draw 
out their better qualities. So with ranching and with 
work on sheep and cattle stations in other parts of 
the Empire. What I have said applies chiefly to 
farming. 

One has no compunction in pointing out instances of 
failure. It is well that parents should be warned of 
what their children must confront when they go abroad, 
and it is equally right that any unsatisfactory form 
of emigration to the North-West should be checked. 
Perhaps, too, perfect frankness of discussion about the 
actual position of affairs may do something to prevent 
misconceptions and to remedy mistakes. 

To another matter reference should be made in this 
connexion. The system of paying large premiums for 
the instruction of youths in farming or ranching is 
utterly discredited among practical men in Canada. 
Occasionally the plan may work well, but it is open to 
grave abuses. Labour of all kinds has its cash value 
on Canadian farms. The best possible means by which 
a young man can test his suitability for the life and 
become competent is to hire out as a labourer with a 
Canadian farmer for a year or two, depending entirely 
upon his wages for his support. If he passes this test 
successfully he is fit for the life of the country. If the 



II 



The North-West 39 



work proves too severe, the experiment has not at 
least been an expensive one, and he can select some 
other outlet for his energies. At the end of his 
period of service the money that would have been paid 
in premiums or thrown away in lightly-spent remit- 
tances will be sufficient to give him a good start in a 
sphere for which he has been prepared by hard but 
necessary experience. There is a good deal to be said 
in favour of gaining this elementary experience in the 
older communities of the Eastern Provinces before he 
faces the rougher life of the West. This must be 
determined by circumstances. The necessity for such a 
course diminishes as the country fills up. Arrange- 
ments can often be made through friends or emigration 
offices with substantial farmers to give employment to 
young men, at first for their board and later for wages, 
which increase with their earning capacity. The latter 
point is easily settled justly by the employ 6 holding 
himself free to find a better market for his labour, if he 
can. To send out young men with capital, but without 
experience and settled characters, is practically to invite 
the attentions of those who are always ready to plunder 
or lead astray the weak and unsophisticated. 

In addition to the settlers from the older provinces 
of the Dominion, and from England, Ireland, and Scot- 
land, there are being formed at some points in the 
North- West a curious variety of small colonies of 
different nationalities, mostly northern — Danes, Swedes, 
Norwegians, Belgians, Bavarians, Alsatians, Icelanders, 
and many others. A small band of settlers comes at 



40 The Great Dominion chap. 

first under some special impulse, and gradually attracts 
to itself recruits from the home centre. The numbers 
are sufficient to give a degree of cohesion to these small 
communities and some vitality to the languages they 
speak. A more complete intermixture with the prevail- 
ing English-speaking population would facilitate the 
work of assimilation. On the other hand, the emigrant 
finds himself at once among friends, and so does not feel 
so keenly the change from the old to the new land. It 
is difficult as yet to judge how far this method of settle- 
ment will extend. It can in any case only temporarily 
lengthen out the process of amalgamation. 

A new and highly interesting factor has lately 
appeared in the settlement of the North- West. The 
United States have become an important recruiting 
ground for immigrants. In the Eastern Provinces I had 
heard of a movement northward from the Western 
States towards the Alberta and Saskatchewan districts. 
On inquiry at the land office at Winnipeg I was shown 
long lists of receipts for first payments on lands in the 
Prince Albert districts made by farmers in Dakota, 
Nebraska, Washington, and even as far south as Kansas. 
These men had already moved into the country, or 
were preparing to do so in the coming spring. At 
Calgary a more striking proof of the reality of the 
movement was thrust upon me. In going northward to 
Edmonton I found myself spending a not very comfort- 
able, but highly interesting, day in a train packed with 
emigrants, men, women, and children, most of whom 
were removing from a single district in the State of 



ii The North-West 41 

Washington to the banks of the Saskatchewan. I 
learned that the northward trains from Calgary for 
some time before had been crowded in a like way. 

In conversation with the immigrants it w r as easy to 
discover the explanation of this new and unexpected 
movement of population. " Land is getting to be land 
on this continent," one of them remarked to me in 
Western idiom. The rush into a newly-opened district, 
such as that which took place at Oklahoma a few years 
ago, illustrates the extent to which land hunger is 
already felt in the United States. Guided by an instinct 
almost like that which directed the buffalo to the fertile 
feeding grounds of the Saskatchewan, the tide of popu- 
lation which filled up the older Western States and 
flowed on to the less fertile regions of Dakota, or to the 
mountain districts with their limited farming lands, 
seems now to have taken a bend northward. If the 
expectations of its pioneers are fulfilled, it seems 
probable that this movement will become very con- 
siderable during the next few years. My latest 
information shows that it was kept up through the 
spring and summer of the year which has just ended. 
These immigrants are of a class which the North- West 
most of all wants. Many are Canadians returning 
after trying their fortunes in the United States. Most 
seemed to be bringing with them money, horses, cattle, 
and household equipment. Best of all, they bring skill 
in pioneering work and acquaintance with its conditions, 
in these points having an infinite superiority over the 
emigrant direct from Europe. It was striking to observe 



42 The Great Dominion chap. 

the confidence and reliance upon their own resources 
with which these men, accompanied by their wives and 
children, faced the task of finding homes for themselves 
north of the Saskatchewan in the months of October 
and November, when the long, severe winter was all 
before them. They were doing it in order to be ready 
for a good spring's work. 

Once more, in Southern Alberta I found that a group 
of Mormons — an offshoot from Salt Lake — had pur- 
chased to the south and east of Lethbridge more than 
500,000 acres of land from the Alberta Coal and Mining 
Company. About 500 settlers have already entered 
this country, and preparations are being made for a 
continued influx from Utah, where land has become 
scarce. Other immigrants are freely accepted, as there 
is not, I believe, any wish to form a distinct Mormon 
colony. The capitalists who have undertaken this 
enterprise expect to repeat here the process of irriga- 
tion by which the Salt Lake Valley was changed from a 
semi-desert to a richly productive country. It is pro- 
posed to divert the waters of the St. Mary's river through 
a canal which will make a large area as well suited for 
agricultural as it now is for pastoral purposes. 

The North-West is thus being approached from 
various points, and by many classes of immigrants. A 
great rush of population, such as marked the settle- 
ment of some of the Western States, is neither to be 
expected nor desired. But everything now points to a 
steady and healthy growth, such as is required for the 
fuller consolidation of the Dominion. 



II 



The North- West 43 



A study of North-Western Canada enables one to 
understand the main conditions of the rivalry in pro- 
duction going on between the wheat grower at home 
and the wheat grower abroad. The North-Western 
farmer has first of all cheap land of his own, worked by 
machinery with singular ease, and with a store of natural 
fertility which is only exhausted after many years of 
continuous cropping. If he takes up a Government 
homestead his land costs him little more than the 
expense of survey. Even if he buys it from a railway 
or land company at three or four dollars an acre, it has 
not cost him in the first year, when ready for seed, more 
per acre than the yearly rent of wheat land in England. 
His invested capital is therefore very small. This is his 
first and great advantage. Against this must be put 
the fact that he is far from the market which the 
English farmer has almost at his door. It costs from 
30 cents to 40 cents a bushel to carry wheat from many 
points in the West to Liverpool or London. While the 
wide, level stretches of prairie offer great facilities for 
the use of labour-saving agricultural machinery, still 
for any extra labour required there a high price must be 
paid. 

The English farmer, on the other hand, has cheap 
capital and cheap labour, and he lives in a country 
where all manufactured goods are cheap. In direct 
taxes he pays more, in indirect less than the Canadian. 
The contest is more nicely balanced than is generally 
supposed. Agricultural depression has been felt for 
some time in the new land as well as in the old. 



44 The Great Dominion chap. 

Superior energy or skill may incline the advantage one 
way or the other, or the chance of the season. A 
lowering of rents may give it to the Englishman ; a 
lowering of duties to the Canadian. The cheapen- 
ing of transportation both by land and sea will 
have much to do with the question in the future. 
When the exhaustion of his lands compels the farmer 
abroad to use fertilizers, the balance of advantage will 
again be shifted. The area of abundant wheat produc- 
tion has during the last forty years moved steadily 
westward in America from New York State through 
Ohio, Iowa, and Illinois to Kansas ; then northward 
through Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Dakota to the 
Canadian North-West, and there the European farmer 
will have his last keen competition with a rich virgin 
soil. 

As with wheat, so with cattle and horses. For the 
lease of his broad pastures in the grazing country, the 
ranchman pays but a trifling sum. During the whole 
summer his stock feeds upon grass of the most 
nutritious kind, raised without any expense for fertil- 
izers or culture. During the greater part of the 
winter it feeds upon hay cured where it stands 
in the fields, without any expense for being cut. But 
the ranchman, again, is distant from his market, and 
the fatigues and risks of long transportation for his 
cattle weigh heavily against him. Neither in wheat 
nor in cattle has there been much profit during the past 
two seasons for the man of the North- West. I doubt, 
however, whether agricultural depression or the failure 



II 



The North-West 45 



of crops ever presses so closely or severely upon the 
Canadian as upon the English farmer. The latter has 
his rent to pay whatever happens. The former reduces 
his expenses, and, owning his land and having little 
demand upon him for ready cash, tides over a crisis 
more easily. 



CHAPTER III 

THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY 

To pass from study of the North-West to considera- 
tion of the remarkable railway enterprise by which 
it has been thrown open to the world is a natural 
transition. 

Never were the fortunes of a great country and 
a great commercial corporation so closely intertwined 
as in the case of the Canadian Dominion and the 
Canadian Pacific Railway Company. In all the Eastern 
Provinces the Canadian Pacific is either absorbing 
the smaller lines, or taking its place beside the 
greater ones as a keen competitor. In the vast un- 
developed North-West it has the field as yet practically 
to itself. The 7,200 miles of line directly owned or 
worked by the company, the 1,800 miles controlled in- 
directly, already give it a first place among the railway 
systems of the world. This mileage of both kinds is 
rapidly increasing year by year and must continue to 
increase, in order to satisfy the wants of a growing 
country. The line competes successfully with the greatest 
American systems, and is stretching out its arms to the 



ch. in. The Canadian Pacific Railway 47 

heart of the continent. For many hundred miles south 
of the national boundary its influence as a competitor is 
felt through the running connexions which it has formed. 
A new route completed during the past year, from 
Regina across the American boundary, gives it a very 
considerable advantage over any American line in dis- 
tance from the Pacific to Chicago, as it already had 
in the gradients by which the mountains are crossed. 
Already it has captured a large part of the tea trade 
between China, Japan, and the Eastern States, as well 
as Eastern Canada. It is the only system across the 
American continent which is under a single direction, 
a circumstance which gives it a great advantage over 
any existing line in the United States in dealing with 
through traffic and special rates. The statement made 
by President Harrison in his last Message to Congress, 
that the Canadian Pacific is free from the restraints of 
the inter-State commerce law, is true so far as Canadian 
traffic is concerned, but quite incorrect if applied, as 
he apparently intended, to traffic carried on for the 
United States. The 30,000 tons of trans-Pacific freight, 
the 8100,000,000 worth of goods which President 
Harrison mentioned as carried from point to point in 
the United States by Canadian Railways across 
Canadian territory, represent work gained in per- 
fectly legitimate competition and in more than 
ordinarily strict compliance with inter-State law. 
This, at least, is Sir William Van Home's assertion, 
made before a large gathering of business men of 
Boston, and I see no reason to doubt its accuracy. 



48 The Great Dominion chap. 

With the termini of its main line on the Atlantic 
and Pacific, and touching the great lakes in its course 
across the continent, the company is becoming deeply 
concerned in transportation by water as well as by land. 
It already runs one important line of steamships across 
the Pacific to Japan and China, and another upon 
Lakes Superior and Huron. With the newly-opened 
line across the Pacific to Australasia it works in close co- 
operation. The same course will no doubt be pursued 
with the contemplated fast line of steamships across 
the Atlantic to Britain, and it has even been proposed 
that this line should be worked under the immediate 
direction of the company, and as a part of its system. 
The greatest activity marks the enterprises of the 
company across the whole breadth of the continent. 
In the East connexion has been secured with the ports 
of Boston and New York, to supplement that with 
Montreal, Quebec, St. John, and Halifax. In the 
prairie country new branches are being pushed forward, 
and wherever they go new towns are being built up 
under the auspices, one may rather say under the im- 
mediate direction, of the company. The Rocky 
Mountains will probably soon be penetrated by a new 
line through the Crow's Nest Pass, by which the 
company hopes to reach the new mining districts of 
British Columbia. Preparations are being made to 
double-track the line between Lakes Superior and 
Winnipeg, the most important route of wheat trans- 
portation. For the wooden trestle bridges occasionally 
used in the early days of construction bridges of stone 



in The Canadian Pacific Railway 49 

and steel are being rapidly substituted, so that the line 
now compares favourably, in solidity of construction, 
with the best on the continent. 1 In connexion with the 
settlement of the large areas of land granted to it by 
the Government of the Dominion, a vigorous policy is 
being carried out. It is preparing to deal with the 
irrigation problem in the Calgary district. Mines of 
coal and mines of salt are being developed on the 
properties of the company. Whalebacks, those latest 
monstrosities of naval architecture, said to represent 
a great economy in cost of construction as well as in 
running expenses as compared with ordinary vessels, 
are being built on Lake Superior for the transport of 
grain ; steamships and barges on Lake Huron. Vast 

1 The bridging of the St. Lawrence River for railway purposes 
furnishes one of the most remarkable illustrations with which I am 
acquainted of the progress made during the last thirty years in 
combining lessened cost in construction with complete solidity of 
work. The Victoria Bridge, by which the Grand Trunk crosses the 
St. Lawrence near Montreal, has always been looked upon as one 
of the greatest of those feats of construction upon which the 
engineering fame of Robert Stephenson rests. The cost of the 
Victoria Bridge was $6,300,000, without reckoning interest on the 
capital during the six years of construction. To serve precisely 
the same purpose a steel bridge has been built a few miles further 
up the stream for the Canadian Pacific Railway, under the direc- 
tion of its present chief engineer, P. A. Peterson, C. E. - The cost 
of this bridge, begun in 1886 and completed in 1887, was under 
$1,000,000. The Canadian Pacific Line from Smith's Falls to 
Sherbrooke, a distance of 225 miles, with the St. Lawrence Bridge 
at Lachine included, cost less than the Victoria Bridge alone. Such 
a contrast illustrates the extent to which the managers of the 
Grand Trunk are handicapped by capital expenditure. 

E 



50 The Great Dominion chap. 

elevators have been constructed at essential points. A 
telegraph system, which already competes successfully 
with the long-established Western Union and other 
companies, has been constructed across the whole 
breadth of Canada, and it has established a powerful 
Transatlantic cable connexion. Everywhere along its 
lines a standard of travelling comfort, higher perhaps 
than can be found elsewhere in America, has been in- 
augurated by the company. Colonist cars with ex- 
cellent sleeping arrangements are provided to carry emi- 
grants to the prairies with little of the discomfort once 
thought to be the necessary accompaniment of pioneer 
movement. Pullman and kitchen cars, equipped with 
every modern improvement, supply the wants of the 
rich. In the mountain country, at Quebec, and on the 
Pacific coast hotels have been built and splendidly 
equipped to meet the need of the increasing volume of 
tourist travel which is attracted by the magnificent 
scenery of British Columbia and the Lower St. Lawrence. 
Enterprises of a minor kind are entered upon freely 
whenever an opportunity presents itself of developing 
business for the road. All this represents an astonish- 
ing amount of energy and effort. From Halifax to 
Vancouver the " C.P.K.," as it is familiarly called, is a 
factor, and often a large factor, in the affairs alike of 
the country village and of the great city — in the 
politics of the municipality, the province, and the 
Dominion. 

While ready to sharply criticize and combat details 
of policy and administration Canadians are full of ad- 



in The Canadian Pacific Railway 5 1 

miration for the company and its work as a whole. 
They acknowledge that it has taken a leading part in 
making Canada better known in the world. They 
freely admit that the almost phenomenal success achieved 
by the company during the last few years has con- 
tributed in no slight degree to raise the credit of the 
whole Dominion, hitherto not a little injured by un- 
successful railway ventures. They are fond of pointing 
out that at its head is a man who combines an extra- 
ordinary knowledge of detail with ability to deal with 
the transportation problems of a continent, and that in 
an age of great railway men he easily takes his place 
in the front rank. They agree that business merit is 
the only guarantee of promotion in the company's 
service, and that as a consequence Canada has never 
before had so much business energy concentrated in a 
single corporation. 

But the existence of a corporation exercising such 
widespread influence and holding franchises so im- 
portant must always in any country give occasion for 
grave questionings. 

Does it enjoy too wide a monopoly of the country's 
industry ? Will it or will it not use aright its vast 
power? Have the people any sufficient guarantee 
that its immense influence will not be exercised to the 
public detriment ? These are questions which are 
closely debated in Canada. It is safe to say that a 
corporation which has so wide a range of interest, and 
which is strenuously pushing its way further and 
further into almost every department of industrial 

E 2 



52 The Great Dominion chap. 

activity in Canada, must always live on the defensive, 
and always be prepared to combat hostile criticism 
and justify its existence by its works. 

I found a tendency in some quarters in Canada to 
speak of the railway as a grasping monopoly, which 
seeks to enrich itself at the public expense. Part of 
this talk is no doubt due to the play of party spirit ; 
part may be credited to that eternal vigilance which is 
the price paid for liberty. But there is probably no 
question which is likely to come up for discussion more 
often in Canada for years to come ; few about which 
accurate information and a sober judgment are more 
to be desired. 

One point is first to be noted. The people of Canada, 
after years of debate and consideration, deliberately 
elected that the greatest railway system of the country 
should not be under the control of the Government, 
but should be carried on as a private enterprise. They 
endowed it magnificently with lands ; they added the 
gift of a considerable mileage of line fully constructed ; 
they backed up for a time its borrowings by public 
guarantee. When all this was done they preferred 
that it should be handed over entirely to business men 
to be conducted on business principles for the benefit 
of the shareholders. In effect, they invited the com- 
pany to make the most of its great opportunities. 
Nor were these opportunities considered too great by 
impartial men. The right to build the line, with all 
the privileges, land-grants, and franchises connected 
with it. was for some time in the open market with- 



in The Canadian Pacific Railway 53 

out finding financiers bold enough to undertake the 
task. When the task was undertaken the most gloomy 
forebodings were expressed about its success. The 
directors had their periods of great anxiety. The 
two of them who assumed the greatest risks, and upon 
whom the burden of upholding the credit of the com- 
pany at critical moments in the early years of the 
enterprize chiefly fell, instead of gaining by their con- 
nection with the undertaking, as is generally believed, 
really lost heavily. Stock which has been in the 90's, 
and, during the late years of extraordinary railway 
depression, when numbers of the most important 
systems of America have passed into the hands of re- 
ceivers, has continued to hold a relatively good position, 
once stood as low as 37 ; so that if the " C.P.R." is 
to-day a success, it has become a success by hard 
conflict ; if some of its builders and managers have 
won wealth which here and there provokes envy, it 
has been won after great and prolonged risk. 

The advocates of state railways might argue that 
this risk could have best been taken by the state, and 
the increment of value thus secured for the people as 
a whole. But it does not follow that because a rail- 
way pays as a private enterprise it would succeed 
under Government management. Canadian experience 
and opinion point in quite an opposite direction. A 
company can do many things which a Government 
cannot do. Mr. Sandford Fleming, the distinguished 
Canadian engineer, pointed out to me that when he 
had the superintendence of the Government railways 



54 The Great Dominion chap. 

large sums of money were at times lost because work 
that for the greatest economy required instant execu- 
tion had to go through the slow process of being put 
up to public tender in order to guard a Minister of 
Railways from suspicion of jobbery. The president 
and directors of a company are bound by no such 
considerations. Again, there is no doubt that the 
large revenue of the " C.P.R," already amounting to 
more than twenty million dollars annually, has been in 
no small degree created by the courageous backing up 
of private industries and outside enterprises which 
ultimately bring freight and travel to the road. The 
railway has had to make business for itself. No 
Government under our system of party politics would 
dare to deal with private industries and men in the 
same unfettered way that the business company has 
done. To do so would be to expose itself to endless 
suspicion. 

This view, I think, is fully recognized in Canada, 
and I could discover no regret that the original 
decision of the country, so different from that arrived 
at in Australia, had not been to keep the railway under 
public control. Still there is a dread, perhaps natural, 
that the vast growth of the system may make it a 
menace to public interests. The subject is worthy of 
careful consideration. In discussing it the varying 
conditions under which the railway does its work in 
different parts of the continent must be carefully noted. 

As I have said, in the North-West the Canadian 
Pacific has the work of transportation chiefly to itself. 



in The Canadian Pacific Railway 55 

Its original legal monopoly, which provided that no 
line should be built across the national boundary to 
bring it into competition with American systems, was 
given up in 1888, when it received a considerable 
compensation from the General Government for the 
surrender of this privilege of its charter. For the 
wheat transport of Winnipeg and the surrounding 
country it has now to compete with the Northern 
Pacific. Connexions are made also with American 
lines near Lethbridge and near Vancouver, and others 
will follow. It has itself " carried the war into Africa " 
by building a line from the neighbourhood of Regina 
across the national boundary in the direction of 
Minneapolis and Chicago. So vigorously, however, 
does it follow up the progress of settlement with new 
branches, and so difficult is it for new lines to penetrate 
its territory successfully, that one is still correct in 
saying that it has the North- West mainly to itself, and 
this position is likely to be long maintained over 
whole provinces which are as large as European States. 
One asks if the company, with its wide-reaching 
monopoly of transportation, is acting fairly by the 
farmers and traders of the country, and if the vast 
undeveloped West has any adequate protection against 
unjust railway exactions in the future. After making 
the fullest examination of the case that I could, I am 
disposed to answer both of these questions in the 
affirmative. In regard to the fairness of present 
treatment, I was challenged to make the closest inquiry 
by Sir William Van Home himself Complaints, of 



56 The Great Dominion chap. 

course, are numerous, but they require careful sifting. 
The problems connected with through and local rates, 
or what is called the long and short haul, with rates for 
places where there is competition with water carriage 
and where there is not, for places with a return traffic 
and those without any, are very complicated, and often 
lead to accusations of injustice which cannot be 
sustained on close examination. Brandon, for instance, 
feels aggrieved because it does not get the same 
westward rates as a wholesale distributing centre 
that Winnipeg does. But Brandon has, in proportion 
to distance, a distinct compensating advantage over 
Winnipeg in eastward rates for wheat, a far more vital 
question for the people of the surrounding country. 
One heard complaints because much more is charged 
for carrying a car load of goods from Toronto to 
Edmonton than from Toronto to the Pacific coast, a 
greater distance. A little inquiry elicited the fact 
that in the one case there was no return freight, 
in the other there was, to say nothing of the 
fact that on the Pacific coast the railway is compelled 
to compete with ocean carriage. Rates in the moun- 
tain division were said to be excessively high in com- 
parison with those on the prairies. But was not the 
contrast in the cost of transportation far more striking 
before the railway existed at all ? A British 
Columbian mill-owner, whom I met in crossing the 
Atlantic, told me that he had always grumbled at the 
rates until he had crossed the mountains, and observed 
for himself the road over which the freight had to be 



in The Canadian Pacific Railway 57 

brought. The expense of maintaining the line through 
such a country must be relatively enormous. 

Principal Grant, with whom I discussed the question 
before going West, said to me, " The best test is to find 
out whether the introduction of the Northern Pacific 
competition at Winnipeg which followed the Manitoba 
agitation really resulted in a decisive lowering of rates." 
This seemed reasonable. I found that the rate per 
hundredweight for carrying wheat from Winnipeg to 
Fort William had dropped from 24 cents to 21 cents, or 
less than 2 cents per bushel, certainly not a decisive 
reduction, and one which I was told by unprejudiced 
parties would probably have taken place in any case as 
the consequence of a greater volume of exportation. A 
good understanding as to what was a paying rate 
seems to have been established at once and has been 
maintained between the two companies. In addition 
to this reduction I was told that merchants received 
much more attention from railway officials now that 
they had an alternative route by which to carry on 
their traffic. These gains can scarcely be considered 
sufficient returns for the subsidy of about a million 
dollars, by which Manitoba induced the Northern 
Pacific to carry a line into the province. But if the 
practical result of the Manitoba agitation was not very 
great, the sentimental result is not to be ignored. The 
galling sense of an ever-present monopoly was removed. 
So long as it existed there was a tendency to attribute 
to it every ill from which the country might happen 
to suffer. The people and the railway company now 



58 The Great Dominion chap. 

appear to work together on the best of terms for the 
development of the country. Curiously enough it was 
the Canadian Pacific itself which really gained greatly by 
the destruction of its monopoly of communication with 
Manitoba. Its securities, depressed by the political 
agitation which disturbed the province and the 
Dominion, after the settlement of the question steadily 
rose in value. It may be safely said that both 
the company and the public of Manitoba learned 
lessons from this great controversy which they are not 
likely to forget. 

It is easy, however, to understand the chief reason 
why railway rates, even when intrinsically reasonable, 
should appear oppressive to the North-Western farmer 
at the present time. With wheat at 45 or 50 cents a 
bushel he sees half or more of its value absorbed in the 
cost of carriage to market. Under such circumstances 
the temptation to clamour for a reduction of freight 
rates is very great. Yet he should reflect that it must 
cost as much to carry wheat to market which brings 50 
cents a bushel as that which brings a dollar. 

I return to the important point that west of 
Winnipeg, over a vast extent of territory, the company 
still has a practical, though no longer a theoretical, 
monopoly of railway transport. Does any real danger 
lie behind the fact ? I think not. It seems to me 
that self-interest adequately takes the place of com- 
petition. The filling up of the North- West with a 
prosperous, producing population is the one essential 
to the permanent prosperity of the Canadian Pacific. 



in The Canadian Pacific Railway 59 

The contented settler is, as I said before, the best im- 
migration agents. It is he who draws after him from 
the old land a steadily-increasing stream of neighbours, 
friends, and relatives. On purely business principles, 
therefore, the railway company is bound to see that, 
as far as possible, the settler is located on good soil ; 
it is bound to be considerate afterwards in giving him 
access to markets at reasonable rates. It cannot 
afford to be on bad terms with settlers ; it cannot 
afford to incur the hostility of the whole country. 
This seems to me the one effective and sufficient 
guarantee which the North- West has against the evils 
of railway monopoly. On the other hand, the country 
itself is a gainer, and is relieved of a heavy responsibility 
by the existence of a powerful company deeply 
interested in the settlement of the vacant lands, and 
putting forth every effort to that end. The Canadian 
Pacific is to-day the most efficient immigration agency 
at work in Canada. A large Federal expenditure on 
immigration is not popular in the Eastern Provinces, 
which, after taxing their resources in opening up the 
West, now see their own population lessened by the 
attractions which the prairies offer to young men. 
It is therefore fortunate that a powerful and progressive 
railway company, with immense interests at stake, is at 
hand to take a vigorous lead in promoting the settle- 
ment of the country. The Federal Government might, 
in my opinion, advantageously give it more efficient 
and direct assistance than it has done. Every new 
settler who goes into the West contributes, not merely 



60 The Great Dominion chap. 

to the revenues of the railway company, but to the 
revenues of the Dominion as well. As I have said before, 
the interests of the two are singularly intertwined. 
Throughout the North-West the conviction is forced 
upon one that the country has everything to gain from 
the enlarging prosperity of the Canadian Pacific ; that 
the Canadian Pacific has everything to gain from 
securing and maintaining the confidence of the people. 
What the living wage for a railway may be is, of 
course, a question which only experts can decide. It 
must be especially difficult to decide in the case of 
a railway like the Canadian Pacific, built in advance 
of settlement, and compelled to work great lengths 
of line where local revenue cannot for years be expected 
to meet expenditure. But two or three points seem to 
me very clear. Should the railway carry at anything 
less than paying rates, the harm done to its resources and 
credit would soon react on the credit of the Dominion, 
and of industrial enterprises throughout the Dominion. 
During the last few years the line has created a new 
standard of the capacity of the country to give satis- 
factory employment to English capital. Should the 
prestige it has won in this respect weaken, there is not an 
enterprise in Canada which would not suffer in con- 
sequence. Again, since nothing could well do more 
to delay the settlement of the North- West than an 
impression that it was under the heel of a remorseless 
and selfish railway monopoly, the danger to the 
country of having unfounded charges disseminated 
against the railway is very great. 



in The Canadian Pacific Railway 61 

At the last session of the Dominion Parliament, in 
reply to certain charges of levying excessive rates, the 
directors of the Canadian Pacific Railway boldly 
challenged a Government inquiry, claiming that it 
could be shown that the farmers of the North-West 
were in a better position, in regard to the cost of 
reaching the world's markets with their wheat, than 
the farmers of the Western United States, of Russia, 
India, the Argentine Republic, or Australia. The 
Government inquiry thus asked for has been promised, 
and it might with advantage lead up to the adoption 
of some general policy for dealing with such questions. 
The clear and public definition of alleged grievances ; 
the prompt and equally public statement of the com- 
pany's point of view seems • the only course sufficient 
for the circumstances. 

From the point at Fort William where the railway 
reaches the head of Lake Superior a new set of con- 
ditions prevails, since there it comes into competition 
with water carriage, always formidable to a railway. 
As a rule it is the water route which dictates the rate. 
This competition is increasing with the improvement 
of the canals. By using the American canal at Sault 
Sainte Marie vessels drawing 18 feet or 19 feet can 
now pass freely from the head of Lake Superior to the 
extremity of Lake Erie. The corresponding Canadian 
canal at Sault Sainte Marie has been pushed on with 
great energy, and is now ready for use. The canals 
from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario and from Lake 
Ontario to Montreal are being deepened, and before 



62 The Great Dominion chap. 

three years there will be, according to the present 
calculations of the Canadian Government, an open 
14-feet canal passage from the head of Lake Superior 
to the point of ocean shipment on the St. Lawrence. 
The anticipated completion of this canal system has 
given rise to an agitation in some of the Western 
American towns for the construction of a ship canal 
from Buffalo to New York, and the question received 
marked attention in the last Presidential Message of 
Mr. Harrison. But the point on which I want to lay 
stress is that the cheap lake and canal transport will 
take away from the Canadian Pacific during the period 
of open navigation any monopoly of trade from Fort 
William eastward to the Atlantic. As a matter of 
fact, the company even now uses its boats on Lake 
Superior and its eastward-bound cars to keep down 
freight rates from that point. Having to meet the 
competition of the Northern Pacific for the wheat 
traffic of the West, its constant object is to make Fort 
William rather than Chicago or Duluth the most 
advantageous point of shipment. This can only be 
done by keeping down eastward rates from Fort 
William as nearly as possible to the cost of carriage. 
West of Manitoba, again, any considerable increase 
of freight charges would make the shipment of wheat 
impossible ; thus the curious fact arises that this great 
transcontinental railway makes its profit on wheat 
carriage almost entirely within the four or five hundred 
miles between Fort William and Winnipeg, all further 
transportation being done at about cost price. I believe 



in The Canadian Pacific Railway 63 

that this statement, singular as it may seem, will bear 
investigation. 

Besides the competition of lake and canal traffic, that 
of the Grand Trunk and other lines begins as soon as 
Ontario is reached. Here no one questions the fact 
that the Canadian Pacific, by superior activity, has 
given a decided stimulus to all railway work. It has 
probably made it impossible that the Grand Trunk can 
much longer be managed from England, so manifest 
are the advantages of having the directorate on 
the spot, and in a position to deal rapidly and effec- 
tively with every difficulty, and to make the most of 
every opportunity. In this central division of the 
continent, too, is brought out most clearly the necessity 
that any Canadian system should be of great size if it 
is to compete on equal terms with the vast organiza- 
tions of the United States. On the American conti- 
nent, with its widespread combinations, weak railways 
are driven to the wall. 

Originally the Eastern terminus of the railway was 
at Montreal, but connexion has now been established 
with all the provinces immediately on the Atlantic 
coast : with the City of Quebec; with New Brunswick, 
by a short line across the State of Maine, and by an 
alternative route entirely on British territory down the 
valley of the St. John; with Halifax, through the 
running powers which it has acquired over the Inter- 
colonial. Thus it is in touch with all the chief 
Atlantic ports of Canada both for summer and winter. 



64 The Great Dominion chap. 

It is the one chain which links the Dominion together 
from ocean to ocean. 

But while it has connexion with the extreme 
Eastern ports it has not in the East the same con- 
trol of communication which it enjoys in the West. It 
may appear strange that a movement to give it in the 
maritime provinces a command almost as absolute has 
met with a good deal of support in parts of the country. 
The question arose in 1892, and became a subject for 
vehement discussion. 

A proposal was made that the Intercolonial Railway, 
the Eastern division of the transcontinental system, 
which consists of about 1,100 miles of road, and has 
hitherto been worked as a state railway, should be 
handed over entirely to the control of the Canadian 
Pacific. This road was originally built as a part of the 
Confederation compact, with the object of more closely 
uniting the maritime provinces with old Canada. On 
the advice of the Imperial authorities, and for military 
reasons, it was constructed along a route which was not 
the most direct, and which therefore involved unusual 
expense for maintenance. It was never expected to 
make a large return for the money spent upon it, and 
rates have been designedly kept low to encourage inter- 
provincial trade. Two competing lines have since been 
built from the St. Lawrence to the sea coast, breaking 
into the command of traffic which the Intercolonial at 
first enjoyed, but also furnishing a remarkable illustra- 
tion of the growth of inter-provincial trade. Under 



in The Canadian Pacific Railway 65 

these circumstances. A deficit has been incurred in 
working it amounting in some years to more than 
£100,000. There can be little doubt that the political 
and social cohesion brought about between the provinces 
by the railway was cheaply purchased even at this rate. 
Still the deficit long proved a distinct element of 
friction in the machinery of government, and it became 
the ground of much party conflict. It was attributed 
by hostile critics to the inefficiency of Government 
management ; by friendly critics to restraints under 
which Government control necessarily acts, or to the 
inherent difficulties of operating a road originally con- 
structed for other than strictly business purposes. It 
should be said that skilled accountants have taken an 
entirely different view of the matter, and have claimed 
that the deficiency could be traced to the fact that, on 
the Intercolonial, sums spent in construction were 
charged to revenue which in other railways were 
charged to capital. But whatever its cause a resolute 
effort has been made of late to get rid of this deficit. 
The attempt has so far succeeded that in 1893 it was 
reduced to about £5,000, and revenue and expenditure 
were nearly balanced in 1894. There seems fair ground 
to hope that the improvement is permanent. 

It was, however, while the deficit still recurred 
annually that the proposal to which I have referred 
was made. It was suggested by the necessity that 
existed for undertaking another great enterprise. 

Throughout Canada there is a strong desire for a 
fast Transatlantic service equal to the best enjoyed by 

F 



66 The Great Dominion 



CHAP. 



American ports. Several large and prosperous Canadian 
steamship companies are engaged in the St. Lawrence 
trade, and there is a large fleet of ships, but none of 
the existing Canadian lines is fully up to the highest 
standard of modern requirements ; the best of them has 
not built a new ship for more than ten years. Yet the 
Canadian route is much the shortest across the Atlantic ; 
its connexions with every part of the continent from 
Halifax, Quebec, and Montreal are now complete ; an 
adequate service would revolutionize postal communi- 
cation and promote the carriage of perishable products ; 
it would attract a flood of British and American travel. 
The St. Lawrence presents by far the most magnificent 
approach to the American continent, and for two or 
three days of the passage gives the quiet of inland 
navigation in place of the open sea. It is estimated, 
on apparently trustworthy calculations, that by this 
route a traveller could be landed or a letter delivered as 
far west as Chicago as soon as they can reach New 
York by existing lines. At present, in nine cases out 
of ten, time is saved by sending a letter from Britain 
to Canada by way of New York, and the longer route 
presents the same advantage to passengers. Con- 
siderations such as these have led the Canadian 
Government to offer a large subsidy for the encou- 
ragement of such a line. Various offers have been 
received, but up to 1892 none had been entirely satis- • 
factory. Meanwhile, the Canadian Pacific, having 
completed its connexions with the Pacific coast, Japan, 
China, and Australasia, finds that the Transatlantic 



in The Canadian Pacific Railway 6y 

connexion is necessary to the perfection of its system. 
Already it makes a special business at all its offices of 
issuing tickets for the journey round the world — itself 
carrying passengers in its own cars and boats from 
Halifax to Hong-Kong — no small section of the whole 
circumference. To secure a full share of the tide of 
travel to and from the East and Australasia especially it 
must be able to guarantee close connexion with a first- 
class steamboat service across the Atlantic. This it is 
now unable to do. In 1892 the president informally 
proposed to start without subsidy an Atlantic steam- 
ship service up to the highest modern standard, on 
condition that the Intercolonial Railway be handed 
over to his company's control. 

In the possibilities which the company saw of 
developing industries, tourist travel, and traffic in the 
maritime provinces, and thus making the Intercolonial 
a paying concern, and in the advantage which the 
Transatlantic connexion would be to the system as a 
whole, it found an offset to the great expenditure of 
capital and probable initial deficiency of revenue in 
working a first-class steamship line. 

This proposition met with a good deal of favour in 
Ontario, where it was urged that the Dominion would 
save at once the amount of the Intercolonial deficit 
and the steamship subsidy, in all nearly a million and 
a half dollars. Satisfaction was expressed by many 
also at the prospect of thus getting rid of the Govern- 
ment railway, which had so often proved a disturbing 
element in Federal politics. The proposal, on the other 

F 2 



6& The Great Dominion chap. 

hand, provoked much opposition in the maritime pro- 
vinces, where it was criticized as a violation of the 
Confederation agreement, and as giving the railway 
company, already influential enough, a hold on the 
Dominion from coast to coast which is not consistent 
with the security of public interests. 

This dread of railway monopoly is natural, and yet 
it is just possible that it was exaggerated here, as I 
think it was in Manitoba. I must confess that after 
observing how much energetic management on the 
part of the company had done to stimulate industries 
in the West, one would like to see the same energy 
trying to arouse the maritime provinces from a certain 
apathy and slowness of movement which has marked 
them during the past few years. 

The danger of abuse might have been guarded 
against, one would think, by provision for resumption 
with compensation, after a number of years, if the 
arrangement did not prove satisfactory. 

Opposition was too strong, however ; the scheme has 
been for the present abandoned, and efforts are being 
made to secure the fast steamship line by means of an 
independent company. Still it is a noteworthy fact, 
in its bearing on the much disputed question of the 
respective advantages of state- owned and private 
railways, that Canadian opinion seemed for a moment 
to waver on the advisability of handing over as a free 
gift to a private company, a railway on which the 
country had spent nearly $60,000,000. 

There is no doubt that the railway company, from 



in The Canadian Pacific Railway 69 

its extensive connexions, would have been better able 
to make the new line a great success than any com- 
pany working independently of these connexions. 
While the indications are hopeful, it remains to be 
proved whether any other company can be found to 
undertake the work on the scale which the Canadian 
Government requires and the circumstances render 
necessary. 

The time is not far distant when the company will 
practically control 10,000 miles of railway on the 
American continent, and be in easy touch with all the 
main centres of population. The advantage given by 
such a connexion for a steamship line offering the 
shortest possible voyage across the Atlantic is incal- 
culable. It would probably pay such a system to run 
the steamships at a loss. 

Meanwhile the Canadian Pacific has undertaken to 
give its hearty support to any company which under- 
takes to establish the fast Atlantic service. It may 
well do so, for until such a line is in operation, it can- 
not reap the full benefit of its splendid position on the 
American continent, and its connexion across the Pacific. 

Of the efficiency of the Canadian Pacific as a route 
to be used for naval and military purposes there can 
be no question. It has taken its place as carrying 
on regularly a portion of the trooping service of the 
Empire, by transferring men-of-war crews to and fro 
between the Atlantic and Pacific. The trains which 
carry them are equipped with " colonist " sleeping-cars, 
each accommodating about sixty men in comfort day 



jo The Great Dominion chap. 

and night ; a first-class sleeper for officers ; a kitchen- 
car in which cooking can be done for several hundred 
men, besides transport for baggage, provisions, &c. 
The immense plant of the company would give a power 
of multiplying such trains indefinitely if the necessity 
arose for the transfer of large bodies of men. The use 
of this new route has made it possible to reinforce a 
squadron at Vancouver from Great Britain in fourteen 
or fifteen days, and the Chinese squadron in about 
twenty-five days, a great contrast to the long voyage 
round Cape Horn, or by way of the Suez Canal. I 
had the opportunity of travelling for some time with a 
detachment of sailors crossing from Vancouver to 
Halifax. The enjoyment of the trip by the sailors was 
manifest. The meals must have been better than any 
to which they were accustomed on shipboard. The 
travelling comforts provided for men and officers 
apparently left nothing to be desired. Discipline, too, 
was admirably maintained, and Jack, after his six days' 
run over the Rockies, across the vast prairies, and 
through the settled provinces of Eastern Canada, pro- 
bably went on shipboard again with a new conception 
of the greatness of the Empire which he defends. 
There is no reason why the line should not be utilized 
for soldiers as well as sailors. A regiment stationed 
at Hong-Kong could be relieved by one from Halifax 
with ease and speed. To effect such a movement of 
troops would furnish an interesting illustration to the 
world of the new independence which the Empire has 
acquired of old routes of communication. 



in The Canadian Pacific Railway ji 

I was told on high military authority that the some- 
what greater cost of mixed land and sea transport, and 
the want of any system of moving regiments framed 
in view of using this route, are at present obstacles 
to such a demonstration. But it is something to 
know that in time of war the empire has this additional 
resource. 

The contingency of serious snow-blockade, once 
dwelt upon by hostile critics, may be dismissed to the 
realms of imagination. A prominent and responsible 
official has stated that from the opening of the whole 
line in 1886-7 up to November, 1892, not a single day 
had been missed in making connexion across the con- 
tinent from Montreal to Vancouver. During that 
period all the American lines have been blocked, in 
some cases for weeks at a time. It is even claimed 
that the English Great Western has lost more time by 
snow-blockade since 1887 than has the Canadian 
Pacific. An exceptional season may, of course, create 
a difficulty, but what has been said shows that snow- 
blockade need not enter into ordinary practical con- 
sideration in speaking of the road. The triumph of 
engineering skill and of watchfulness in effecting such 
a result is very striking. On the other hand, the floods 
in the Fraser River during the spring of 1894, great 
beyond all precedent since that stream was known, 
broke the communication for several days, put the 
company to vast expense, and proved how great are 
the risks involved in maintaining a railway line through 
a wide range of mountainous country. On the 



j 2 The Great Dominion chap, hi 

subsidence of the floods repairs were effected and 
communication resumed with remarkable rapidity. 

We see, then, that, both in its influence on the 
development of the Dominion and in its character as 
an important route of Imperial communication, the 
Canadian Pacific Railway has become a line of great 
national significance, a significance which is likely to 
increase as time goes on. It must always hold an 
important place in all discussions of Canada's permanent 
relation to the Empire. Such a consideration justifies 
serious study of the problems connected with its 
position ; it excludes either laudation or criticism not 
founded on prolonged examination of very complicated 
conditions. 



CHAPTER IV 

COAL 

It has been pointed out before, but cannot be pointed 
out too often, that the coal deposits of Canada make her 
relation to the maritime position of the Empire one of 
extraordinary interest. This is true, whether we have 
regard to the needs of commerce or to the maintenance 
of naval power. When a large proportion of the 
world's trade is carried in steamships, and when every 
effective ship of war that defends trade is propelled by 
steam, easy access to coal at essential points becomes a 
matter of the first consequence. This is true in times 
of peace, but infinitely more so in times of war, 
when coal for naval purposes can be obtained by 
belligerents only in ports under their own flag. It is 
generally admitted that in any future struggle for 
maritime supremacy an immense advantage would lie 
with the Power which can retain the widest control of 
bases of coal supply. It is this idea which prompts 
our large national expenditure on coaling stations; it 
is, perhaps, less thought of in connexion with territories 
possessing coal deposits. 



74 The Great Dominion chap. 



Certainly the points at which Canada's great coal- 
fields are found may be spoken of emphatically 
as essential. Eastward and westward, on the At- 
lantic and on the Pacific, their location is striking- 
enough. 

Nova Scotia projects far out into the Atlantic, and 
there, at the most northern port on the continent which 
is open both summer and winter, we have fixed the 
great naval station of Halifax, which in time of war 
would necessarily be our chief base for defending what 
has become the greatest food route of the United 
Kingdom. Immediately behind Halifax and closely 
connected with it by rail are the Pictou and other 
Nova Scotian coal mines, which already turn out about 
a million tons of coal per annum. Further north is 
the island of Cape Breton. A century and a half ago 5 
long before steam came into use, the keen eye of French 
soldiers fixed upon Louisburg in Cape Breton as the 
point from which the road to the St. Lawrence could 
best be guarded and French commercial interests 
maintained upon the mainland. The strong fortress is 
gone, but around the fine harbours of the island are 
numerous mines far more useful than was the fortress 
for the prosecution of commerce or, in case of emergency, 
for its defence. From these mines, again, are raised 
yearly about a million tons of coal of excellent quality 
for steaming and other purposes. The mouths of the 
pits are in some cases close to the shore, and as the 
mines are carried far out under the ocean a ship may 
be loading directly over the spot from which the coal is 



IV 



Coal 75 



obtained. Nature could scarcely have done more to 
give an advantageous position. 

Great activity has been given to mining operations 
in Cape Breton by the formation in 1892-3 of a 
powerful syndicate of American and Canadian capitalists 
to work one of the largest and most important groups 
of mines. The predominant influence in the company 
is American, and the action of the Nova Scotian 
provincial government in granting a ninety years' lease 
of the coaling privileges to a body chiefly composed of 
foreigners was at first subjected to a good deal of criticism 
from a national point of view. 

It now seems to be clear that the transaction had no 
political significance, and that the combination was 
made entirely as a commercial speculation. 

The application of abundant capital under the 
vigorous direction of the syndicate is an unmixed good, 
while the existence of other mines in the Sydney district 
uncontrolled by the new company will probably act as a 
permanent hindrance to the creation of a dangerous 
monopoly. 

Large deposits of coal are also known to exist on the 
eastern side of the island, and the development of new 
mines here will in time enlarge the area of independent 
production. The lowering of the duty imposed on coal 
by the McKinley tariff will to some extent influence 
the prospects of coal mining in Nova Scotia and Cape 
Breton ; the entire abolition of the duty, which seems 
probable within the next few years, will affect the 
industry profoundly. The consumption of coal in the 



76 The Great Dominion chap. 

New England states alone amounts annually to about 
11,000,000 tons, and free competition for this market 
must have the effect of greatly stimulating Canadian 
production. 

The coal measures of this eastern portion of Cape 
Breton have been carefully explored, and their extent 
determined with considerable accuracy. It is some- 
what important to note that they stretch directly along 
the coast from the north side of Sydney harbour south- 
ward in the direction- of Louisburg for no less than 
twenty-five miles. From the shore they do not extend 
more than about four miles inland. The dip of the 
seams appears to indicate that they go nearly as far out 
under the sea, and in one case the galleries have already 
been carried out between one and two miles, while 
leases are taken to cover a distance of three miles sea- 
ward. The coal is shipped at three different harbours 
along this coast line of twenty-five miles, and prepara- 
tions are being made for shipping it at a fourth. 

The peculiar position of the mines thus lying along a 
lengthened coast line would make their protection in 
time of war by land defences a difficult and very expen- 
sive undertaking. It would probably be effected more 
easily by ships of war stationed in the neighbourhood. 
Yet their defence would be a necessity if the maritime 
superiority which they give is to be maintained. 

At present the harbours in use are practically closed 
to navigation by ice, from the beginning of the year till 
May. To secure a port for winter shipment a railroad 
is now (1894) being built to Louisburg, and the com- 



iv Coal y j 

mercial activity of the ancient town will soon be 
revived. 

With the exception of two or three weeks, when it 
is liable to some slight obstruction from drift ice, the 
harbour of Louisburg is open all the year round. It is 
so situated as to be easily protected, and could readily 
be changed into a defended coaling station. 

The full significance of these coal resources to a great 
maritime Power can only be fully understood when we 
reflect — first, that the importance of the St. Lawrence 
as a food route is fast increasing ; and, secondly, that, 
with the exception of what might be temporarily stored 
at Bermuda and the West India stations, these are 
the only coal supplies to which British ships would 
have the national right of access in time of war along 
the whole Atlantic coast of America. As things now 
stand, Britain is the only Power which has adequate 
bases of coal supply on both sides of the Atlantic. 

These supplies are, of course, as useful for inland 
traffic as for ocean service. Nova Scotian coal finds its 
way in large quantities several hundred miles westward 
from the Atlantic coast, and supplies the provinces of 
New Brunswick and Quebec with the greater part of 
what they consume. During the summer it has a 
water route up the St. Lawrence, and it is also carried 
by the Intercolonial Railway at exceptionally low 
rates, in accordance with the Government policy of 
giving all possible encouragement to inter-provincial 
trade. 

The consumption of Nova Scotian coal in Quebec 



yS The Great Dominion chap. 

which in 1877 amounted to 95,000 tons,had risen in 1891 
to 775,000 tons. The whole of the Dominion Govern- 
ment Railways, of which 1,397 miles are in operation, 
are worked with Nova Scotian coal. Most of the other 
railways of the lower provinces, including the Atlantic 
connexion of the Canadian Pacific, as far west as 
Montreal, draw their supplies from the same source. 
New Brunswick also has bituminous coal, but the only 
seam yet discovered of sufficient thickness to work is 
one at Grand Lake, which gives a supply for local con- 
sumption, but does not add greatly to the product of 
the country. An attempt is now being made to enlarge 
the output, and to use the coal for smelting purposes. 
In Albert County a large quantity of a peculiar and 
exceedingly valuable coal, known to science as albertite, 
has been mined in past years. The known deposits 
have been worked out with great profit to their owners, 
but there are many indications that other mines remain 
to be discovered. Cannel coal of great richness is 
also found in abundance in this county, and awaits 
development. 

When we cross the continent to the Pacific coast we 
find, in connexion with the coal of British Columbia, a 
group of facts scarcely less striking than those to which 
reference has already been made. Along the whole Pacific 
coast of South America no coal is found suited for 
steaming purposes. There is none along the coast of 
North America until we come to Puget Sound. At 
different points on the Sound mines are being worked 
on American territory, but the coal is all of a distinctly 



IV 



Coal 79 



inferior quality. It is only when we cross the boundary 
line into Canadian territory that in Vancouver Island, 
the site of Britain's only naval station on the western 
coast of America, we meet with large deposits of good 
steaming coal. The superiority of this coal is proved 
beyond question by the published tables of the War 
Department of the United States, in which are given 
the comparative values for steam-raising purposes of the 
various fuels found on the Pacific coast. In this state- 
ment — certainly not a partial one — the Nanaimo coal 
is rated far above any found in Washington, Oregon, or 
California. The annual output of the mines at Nanaimo 
and Wellington has now risen beyond a million tons. 
At Nanaimo the principal mine is directly upon the 
shore, and the galleries are being run out far under the 
arm of the sea which divides Vancouver Island from 
the mainland, so that here, as at Cape Breton, ships of 
heavy tonnage take in coal while moored immediately 
over the place from which it is obtained. In either 
case the facility for easy and rapid coaling could not 
well be excelled. The very facility of approach creates a 
responsibility. When ships can sail in from the open sea 
and come directly to the place where large stores of coal 
are ordinarily accumulated, it is clear that these stores 
must have some means of defence if they are not to 
fall into the hands of the first comer. The full appre- 
ciation of the value of these coaling positions ought to 
secure for them some adequate defence, and this they 
do not at present possess. Canada is now co-operating 
with Britain in providing adequate defence for the 



So The Great Dominion chap. 

naval station of Esquimalt, the importance of which was 
well illustrated when I was there by the presence in the 
fine graving dock of a man of war, undergoing repairs 
after a serious mishap. Doubtless Esquimalt must be 
the main reliance for the safety of the fleet in the North 
Pacific, but some subsidiary protection seems imperative 
for the security of actual coaling ports like Nanaimo, 
if they are to be safe against sudden attack. Full and 
joint provision for this may only be possible when the 
motherland and the colonies have arrived at a clear 
understanding in regard to the distribution of national 
responsibility. The defence, however, ought certainly 
to be given, and it would be wiser to plan carefully and 
completely in time of peace for what would of necessity 
have to be supplied hastily under the pressure of any 
threat of war. Such a question would be fair matter 
for deliberation and decision at the colonial conferences 
of the future.- 

A fact may here be mentioned which illustrates by 
contrast the singular advantage which the Empire 
possesses from the command of abundant coal on the 
Pacific. The great American city of San Francisco, 
with its extensive shipping and railway connexions, 
draws its chief supplies of good coal from three British 
sources — Vancouver, New South Wales, and Great 
Britain itself. Curiously enough the two distant points 
compete in furnishing this coal on practically equal 
terms with Vancouver, which is close at hand. Ships 
chartered to carry wheat from the Pacific coast to 
Europe from want of a return cargo use coal as ballast 



IV 



Coal 



in voyaging from England or Australia, and are there- 
fore able to deliver it in San Francisco almost as cheaply 
as it is brought from Vancouver. During the year 1892 
San Francisco took about 600,000 tons of Vancouver 
coal. The American steamship lines to China and 
Australia use it almost exclusively. It goes to the 
Sandwich Islands, to Mexico, and many other points on 
the Pacific, a circumstance which indicates how much 
Canada's stake on that ocean is increasing. 

Another suggestive fact should be mentioned. The 
American cruisers employed in guarding the seal 
fisheries in the Behring Sea have taken the larger part 
of their coal supplies from Vancouver. The manager 
of the principal mining company at Nanaimo told me 
that he had thus, in a single year, sent 5,000 tons to the 
Behring Sea for the use of American ships. The British 
cruisers were at the same time using Welsh coal, to 
which the preference was given, not from any superiority 
in steaming qualities, but because it was a smokeless coal 
and cleaner. The Admiral stated that he could see 
American ships several miles further than they could 
see him. The advantage of such a coal in time of war 
is obvious, but in war time the only coal obtainable 
would probably be that near at hand. I shall have 
occasion, however, to speak of smokeless coal again. 

The Vancouver mines furnish the Canadian Pacific 
Company with fuel for their fast steamship service to 
China and Japan and for their railway service to the 
summit of the Rockies. Without these mines the 
Transcontinental Railway and its ocean connections — 

G 



82 The Great Dominion chap. 

in other words, the new postal, commercial, and military 
route to the East, would scarcely be an accomplished 
fact. In the West, then, as well as the East, on the 
Pacific as on the Atlantic, Canada's coal measures are 
so placed as to give the greatest possible advantage for 
external and internal communication; for the prosecution 
of commerce in times of peace, and for its defence 
in time of war. And surely vast coal measures 
lying behind defended or defensible ports must be 
of more permanent worth than mere coaling stations 
which have to draw all their supplies across wide 
seas. 

We may now consider how the coal supplies of the 
coast are supplemented by those of the interior. 

An important coal area has lately been opened up in the 
Rocky Mountain district. A few miles from Banff, and 
scarcely a hundred yards from the line of the Canadian 
Pacific Railway, a mine of anthracite coal is being worked. 
Many outcrops of the same deposit are found north- 
ward and southward along the line of the Rockies in 
British Columbia. It represents, I believe, the only 
true anthracite coal which has yet been found, or, at any 
rate, worked, in America westward of Pennsylvania. 
It contains a larger amount of fixed carbon than the 
Pennsylvanian coal, burns rather more rapidly, and gives 
out a greater heat. On account of the peculiar excel- 
lence of the coal, the development of this mine has been 
watched with much interest. The chief difficulty has 
arisen from the lack of a sufficient market within a 
reasonable distance. The coal is used exclusively by 



IV 



Coal &s 



the Canadian Pacific Railway in heating its cars as far 
eastward as Lake Superior. For domestic purposes it 
is sold as far eastward as Winnipeg, taking the place of 
Pennsylvanian coal brought up the Lakes, and west- 
ward as far as Vancouver. It would be much more ex- 
tensively used but for the fact that stoves and furnaces 
generally throughout the country are adapted to the 
use of soft bituminous coal, and the class of people 
willing to change their appliances and pay a higher 
price for a superior coal is limited. There has hitherto 
been little sale for the refuse coal or slack, which, in the 
neighbourhood of large manufacturing centres in Eng- 
land or Pennsylvania, adds so much to the profits of the 
mine-owner. Use is now being found for it in working 
electrical machinery, and this field is enlarging in the 
West. 

At Canmore, only ten miles distant from the anthra- 
cite mine, the Rocky Mountain deposits furnish a coal 
of a different quality. The mines have not long been 
opened, and their extent has not yet been fully deter- 
mined, but the coal has been found to be almost 
smokeless, and has the further quality of coking well. 
Both these facts are of the utmost interest, as the one 
suggests the possibility of our ships of war in the Pacific 
being supplied near at hand with the smokeless coal at 
present obtained from Wales, while the silver mines now 
opening up in the Kootenay districts, as well as those 
on the other side of the national boundary, create a 
large demand for coke to be used in smelting. An 
adequate supply of coke, indeed, is almost essential to 

G 2 



84 The Great Dominion chap. 

the fullest and most successful operation of the mining 
industries of British Columbia. 1 

Further south along the range of the Rockies, once 
more, at the Crow's Nest Pass, other outcrops of a re- 
markable thickness and good quality have been dis- 
covered. As there is at present no railway connection 
to this point, and as the country around is comparatively 
unsettled, there has been no inducement to work these 
deposits, which await the advance of civilization. But 
it is through the Crow's Nest Pass that an easier access 
to the Kootenay country will ultimately be sought, and 
the Canadian Pacific Railway is even now feeling its 
way in this direction, having made surveys with a view 
to the early construction of a line. 

Thus the coal mines of the Rocky Mountains promise 
to supply what is lacking in the quality of those of the 
Pacific coast and those of the prairies. They give 
completeness to the means of transcontinental carriage. 
With abundant coal on the Pacific coast, on the eastern 

1 Since this paragraph was written I have had the opportunity 
of observing some further facts of importance in connection with 
coke production in Canada. Two years ago, at Nanaimo, Mr. 
Robins mentioned to me the probability that German methods of 
treatment would be applied to overcome the lack of good coking 
coal in the Dominion. During the last year, in confirmation of 
this opinion, an extensive plant has been erected in connection 
with the iron works of New Glasgow in Nova Scotia, and the 
production of what appears to be excellent coke is being carried on 
with complete success. The operation consists in crushing the coal 
almost to powder, and then, before it is put into the retorts, 
washing out the earthy and other material which, as taken from 
the mine, diminish its coking qualities. The results seem to be 
quite satisfactory. 



IV 



Coal 85 



slope of the Rockies, and in the heart of the prairies, 
railways have an easy command of fuel as far eastward 
as Lake Superior, where water carriage begins. Of the 
coal areas of the prairies, however, I have not as yet 
spoken. 

In a country mainly treeless and with a cold winter 
season the existence of coal decides the question of 
settlement, or at least of dense settlement. This con- 
sideration for some time seemed to hold the destiny of 
the Canadian North- West in the balance. Along the 
river beds and in the rougher undulating country there 
was wood sufficient for the purposes of the early settlers, 
but it was evident that any increase of population on 
the plains would soon exhaust these limited supplies. 
In many districts it has already done so. Coal, there- 
fore, has always been essential to the permanent success 
of the North- West. Fortunately, vast beds have been 
discovered, equal apparently to any necessities of future 
population. It is of varying quality. The Gait mines 
at Lethbridge are the most important of those yet 
opened. The product is a good bituminous coal, ex- 
cellent for railway use, and giving the farmer a not too 
expensive fuel. The seam now being worked is between 
5 feet and 6 feet thick, and is only 30 feet or 40 feet 
beneath the surface of the prairie. The coal bed has 
already been traced to the West and North -West for 
many miles, and the company knows that it has a 
practically unlimited supply to draw upon. The present 
output of 800 or 900 tons a day could therefore be 
readily increased to meet any demand. In spite of the 



86 The Great Dominion chaf. 



duty of 75 cents per ton, a considerable quantity of this 
coal was sent across the American border, as none equally 
good is easily obtainable from American sources. 
Should the duty be removed, the Lethbridge coal would 
find a large American market in the mining country to 
the south, while supplying all the needs of the sur- 
rounding prairie regions. The Lethbridge coal is used 
all along the line of the Canadian Pacific Kailway as 
far as Winnipeg, and even beyond to Port Arthur, where 
it begins to meet the competition of Pennsylvanian coal 
brought up the Lakes. 

Eastward from Lethbridge, and reaching along the 
American boundary to the borders of Manitoba, are coal 
measures which have been estimated by Dr. Dawson to 
cover 15,000 square miles. The coal hitherto obtained 
is not of the best quality, and many of the seams con- 
sist mainly of lignite. They lie quite near the surface 
and are easily worked. In special localities the quality 
may improve. I visited the newly-opened mines at 
Estevan, about 325 miles from Winnipeg. The early 
product of the mines was not very satisfactory, as the 
coal, which looked well when it came out of the mine, 
crumbled after exposure to the air. Deeper mining is 
expected to produce better results. At the worst, how- 
ever, Southern Manitoba and Assiniboia are assured of 
an abundance of cheap fuel, which will meet the neces- 
sities of the farming population. Outcrops are met 
with in many places, and as railways are pushed forward 
new mines will be opened. 

When we go northward to the Saskatchewan a strik- 



IV 



Coal 87 



ing illustration of the abundance of coal in this district 
is furnished by the thick seams which are visible all 
along the banks of that river in the vicinity of 
Edmonton. A serviceable domestic coal is delivered in 
Edmonton and at most points in the country around 
for about 10s. per ton. A combine of the mines about 
the time I was there to raise the price to 13s. or 14s. 
per ton was met by a threat on the part of the con- 
sumers to mine their own coal, as numbers of the farmers 
could easily do on their own land. At this town, which 
seems from the distance of England to be on the very 
frontiers of civilization, it was interesting to observe 
that not only the streets, but the shops and private 
houses were brilliantly illuminated by the electric light 
cheaply obtained by the use of coal which can be mined 
almost at the door of the engine-room. The coal-beds 
of the Saskatchewan extend far down that river, and 
will in due time be reached by the railway, which is 
already extended to Prince Albert. We may, therefore, 
say that the whole great central prairie region of North 
Western Canada is encompassed by accessible deposits of 
fairly good coal. Still further northwards they have 
been explored far into the valley of the Peace river, 
where they await and make possible the advance of 
settlement. It seems scarcely necessary to draw the 
conclusions suggested by this statement of Canada's 
supplies of coal, and especially of those on the eastern 
and western coasts, directly connected with the maritime 
position of the Empire. People who talk lightly of the 
possibility of Canada's becoming independent or of her 



•88 The Great Dominion ch. iv 

annexation to the United States, by either of which 
changes her ports and her supplies of coal would become 
closed to British ships in times of war, have reflected, 
little upon the conditions which determine national 
safety, under modern naval arrangements, for a great 
commercial people. When we estimate the commercial 
stake which British people have upon the North Atlantic 
and upon the Pacific, and when we consider that the 
power of the strongest ship of war to defend commerce 
is strictly limited by its coal endurance, it would seem 
probable that the Dominion may yet come to be 
regarded as almost the keystone of the nation's naval 
position. 



OINTATtIO & QUEBEC RAILWAY SYSTEM 




a 



Slatclf 



Mitffe I. 

^OJ"ale S ^j> Otter 









^^27^ ffanitou, r "'V V&> 
^ Jfonw 



"iJcfM Ij V i'.jSwiimer _ C-4Jig ' 



^ df»»/M«ffrl 

IBend e^j 
Jzaubee ,__ 



ilaymT 
. BaJ -fewto*,. 

'■"il.-»„„, s ""»'!Z'<r„j a 
• un r^y""""niu / l 

P^AOricago 5» ' 







8? :\ ^^P^3tT a T^a^ a -r,«VA k , i ,{ < ^.'Wr ^: 













! ite 







.¥/^ ? PC ifiWl 






»$pf CeAarb 



■ii'i"''' ' \ . ■/ J! 



W%3 



j-ope^m 



WW 






gn' 






bKjlT^-* 


^i,/ 








"^/Qj 










caS 


J?.k 









l/Souift/C. 

<<$r.q!xBarques P Llarl 

A&Vt 
Goderichf 
BayOelA} 















"^•\r^^ 






.gPeUcl. 
\<Mdon' JBazne&vh 



^^ff/'"^^/^ 









200 EN GUSH MILES 



CHAPTER V 

EASTERN CANADA 

Ontario and the Maritime Provinces 

I began these studies of Canada by consideration of 
the North- West, as presenting one of the most interest- 
ing and critical problems in the development of the 
Dominion. But it must constantly be remembered 
that, after all, the brains and pith and marrow of the 
country are still in the Eastern Provinces ; that these 
are still the centre of political force, of the country's 
progress, wealth, and culture, of those decisive charac- 
teristics which have given Canada its strong individu- 
ality, and will, for many years to come, chiefly mould 
its future ; that, in fact, the North- West is but a 
yesterday's offshoot and creation of the sturdy life which 
has been steadily growing up for a long time in the 
East. It would therefore leave quite a wrong impression 
on readers in other parts of the Empire to lay the 
emphasis, in discussing Canada's affairs, on the West, to 
the exclusion of the East. A precisely opposite course 
would at the present moment be more just. The great 



90 The Great Dominion char 

possibilities of the prairie country have impressed the 
imagination of people at a distance, and have made it, 
during the last few years, rather unduly overshadow the 
older provinces of which I am now to speak. As far 
as political and social power go these latter still con- 
stitute by far the greater part of Canada. Of eighty 
members of the Dominion Senate, seventy-two come 
from the east and but eight from the west of Lake 
Superior. In the House of Commons the proportion is 
200 to fifteen, while of the Western representatives 
themselves, excluding those of British Columbia, a 
large majority were born and bred in the East. These 
figures will enable the reader to form in his own mind 
some fair balance of the relative present proportions 
and influence of the two sections of the country. 

Nor must it be thought that the developments of the 
future belong to the West alone. All the Eastern 
Provinces still have large unoccupied areas, while their 
resources are much more varied than those of the 
somewhat monotonous West. Eastern Canada is a 
country of seacoast, islands, peninsulas, great rivers, 
and lakes ; of splendid fisheries ; of varied scenery and 
climate ; of coal, timber, iron, and gold ; precisely that 
combination of condition and resources which history 
has proved most favourable to human progress. 

Of the provinces, Ontario is by far the greatest and 
wealthiest, at present containing well nigh one half the 
population of the whole Dominion, and with great pos- 
sibilities of future growth. Bounded by three great 
lakes, Ontario, Erie, and Huron, and by three great 



v Eastern Canada 91 

rivers, the St. Lawrence, Detroit, and Ottawa, so that 
its position, though in the middle of the continent, is 
almost insular ; equipped with a most complete railway 
system ; having a climate which favours the growth in 
abundance of grapes, peaches, melons, maize and similar 
products in the south, and is singularly suited for wheat, 
barley, and all the hardier cereals further north ; with 
petroleum and salt areas in the west, timber areas on 
Lake Huron, mineral deposits of great variety and 
extent on Lake Superior, the province seems almost 
unique in situation and resources for production and 
commerce of all kinds. Its future must be very great 
indeed, and whatever may be the growth of the West, 
Ontario will assuredly remain for a long time the centre 
of political and commercial energy in the Dominion. 
At least, if there is any lack of prosperity and influence, 
it will lie in the people themselves, not in their stars. 
British capital, which is content with secure investment 
at moderate rates of interest, is finding much employ- 
ment in Ontario, and, under judicious management, 
may safely do so in much larger volume than at 
present. 

It is not without some feeling of geographical surprise 
that one finds from a comparison of areas that this 
single Canadian province of Ontario is as large as the 
whole of the six New England States, together with 
New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Nor will its 
growth be considered slow, if we remember that in 
1776, when these States were populous enough to bear 
the main brunt of the revolutionary war, Ontario was 



92 The Great Dominion chap. 

practically an unexplored wilderness ; while as late as 
1835 the population, now nearly two millions and a half, 
numbered only three hundred thousand. 

When it is remembered also that this growth of little 
more than half a century has not been made on a prairie 
soil, but that every one of its 25,000,000 cleared acres 
has involved hewing down a heavily wooded forest, the 
progress made seems surprising, and explains why the 
province has reared a hardy race of men. 

The truth is that the southern and western districts 
of Ontario — those which lie between the St. Lawrence 
and the Ottawa, and those which are enclosed by the 
lakes Ontario, Erie and Huron — have almost every- 
thing that could recommend them as a place in which 
to make a home — a fertile soil, variety of production, a 
plentiful water supply, and a salubrious climate. I 
doubt if any mainly agricultural area of equal size in 
the world gives evidence of more uniform prosperity 
among the mass of the people than do the older portions 
of Ontario. I base the comparison on observation of the 
country around Toronto, Hamilton, Niagara, London, 
Woodstock, Ingersoll, St. Thomas, Guelph, Belleville 
and Kingston ; and any one who takes the trouble to 
visit these places and study the surrounding districts 
will, I think, ratify the judgment. 

Speaking generally, agricultural employment and 
products in Ontario are not unlike those of the 
United Kingdom ; a warmer summer and drier autumn 
giving, in comparison, advantages in ripening fruit and 
harvesting grain ; a colder winter presenting drawbacks 



Eastern Canada 93 



in the feeding of stock and for outdoor farm work. 
But there are districts with characteristics worthy of 
special note. 

A visit to the Niagara Peninsula of Ontario, for in- 
stance, upsets many preconceived ideas about the 
Canadian climate and the range of Canadian produc- 
tion. It is the greatest fruit district of the Dominion. 
Could Louis the Fifteenth have seen it as it is to-day 
he would have understood that instead of the " few 
arpents of snow " which he thought, or affected to think, 
he was signing away when he ceded Canada to Britain, 
he was really handing over to English people one district, 
at least, which compared not unfavourably in soil and 
climate with the richest and sunniest parts of France. 
Grapes, peaches, melons, and tomatoes, which in England 
are ripened with difficulty when not under glass, are 
here raised in the greatest profusion in the open air. 

As a consequence the markets of all the principal 
towns of Eastern Canada are in the season supplied 
with fruit in extraordinary abundance, and at a price 
which makes it not merely a luxury of the rich, but a 
part of the ordinary diet of the poor. When large 
baskets of delicious peaches and very good grapes are 
sold, as is constantly the case in the Toronto and 
Montreal markets, for between 40 and 60 cents (Is. 6d. 
and 2s. 6d.), these fruits are evidently within the reach 
even of the ordinary working man. 

The fruit growing industry of the Niagara district is 
already important, but a steadily widening market 
seems likely to give it a great expansion. Few parts of 



94 The Great Dominion chap. 

Canada illustrate more fully the advantage which has 
come from the extension of the railway system of the 
Dominion. 

The prairies of the North- West produce little or no 
fruit, and are never likely to minister much to their 
own wants in this respect. 

Already many hundred tons of grapes, pears, tomatoes, 
&c, are shipped yearly from the country between 
Hamilton and Niagara to Winnipeg, whence it is dis- 
tributed as far west as the Rocky Mountains, The 
growth of Western population will steadily increase the 
importance of this market. Eastward a market is 
found as far as Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, 
the latter of which, though an excellent apple region, 
does not favour the growth of grapes and peaches. 
Special daily fruit trains are run regularly during the 
autumn to Toronto and Montreal, and fruit transport 
forms at this season an important item in the receipts 
of the Grand Trunk and other lines. The business 
must be a profitable one, since it bears the express rate 
of $200 per car-load which is charged between Hamilton 
and Winnipeg. One would think that with good 
appliances for cold storage, grapes and tomatoes, at 
least, could be cheaply and profitably placed upon the 
English market. 

I had heard that hopes were entertained of the 
Peninsula becoming a large wine producing area. There 
are, of course, many difficulties involved in producing 
wines of the best quality to compete with those of Europe, 
and, in addition to this, I was told by one of the largest 



v Eastern Canada 95 

growers that it only paid to use the grapes for making 
wine when the price had fallen to what seemed a 
ridiculously low point ; I think below a cent per pound. 
Under these conditions the growing demand for the 
grapes as a fruit must, one would think, check for a 
long time any attempts at wine production on a large 
scale. 

Still a good deal of wine has already been made, and 
there are growers who take a much more hopeful view 
of the industry than that here stated. Their opinions 
may be based on a wider study of the facts than I could 
give to them. It is significant that a vigorous protest 
was made by the vine-growers of Ontario against the 
lately concluded French Treaty, providing for the freer 
introduction of light French wines. The protest was 
based on the rapid growth of vineyard culture, the ex- 
treme cheapness of production, and the hopes enter- 
tained of making the wine output a valuable adjunct of 
the general fruit business of the province. 

Besides the expanding home market for more perish- 
able fruits of which I have spoken, the export of apples 
from Ontario to Britain is very large. In favourable 
years it has amounted to four or five hundred thousand 
barrels and the quantity increases with improve facilities 
for transportation. 

The success of the apple trade has in many cases 
been much lessened by want of care in selecting and 
packing fruit, but the Fruit Growers' Association, which 
publishes a useful monthly magazine and holds regular 
meetings for the discussion of all subjects connected 



96 The Great Dominion chap. 

with the business, is now making resolute efforts at im- 
provement in these particulars. A law has already 
been passed by the Dominion Parliament providing for 
the inspection of fruit. Unfortunately this inspection 
is voluntary only, and must be paid for by the dealer. 
The association aims at a general and compulsory in- 
spection and grading carried out at the expense of the 
Government. 

If the external appearance of the farms and farm- 
buildings furnishes a reliable indication of prosperity, 
the business of fruit-growing in the Niagara Peninsula 
is a profitable one. The opportunities seem equally 
good for orchards on a large or small scale. One which 
I visited near Grimsby contained about 100 acres, all 
in a high state of cultivation. Attention was about 
equally divided between peaches, pears, grapes, apples, 
plums, cherries, tomatoes and small fruit, such as 
currants, gooseberries and blackberries. 

For men experienced in fruit culture, and with some 
capital, this district of Canada offers very distinct 
opportunities. Orchard land already planted is, of 
course, expensive, but I was told that plenty of land, 
as good as that which now produces the best results, 
could be got at a reasonable price. But every one with 
whom I discussed the question laid stress upon the 
necessity for experience. It is not a business at which 
any casual beginner can succeed. 

In other districts of the province there are the best 
opportunities for mixed farming. Stock raising and 
dairying have of late years steadily taken the place of 



v Eastern Canada 97 

wheat growing, once the farmer's chief reliance. The 
policy which has dictated the change is a wise one, for 
the relative depreciation of price in the case of cattle 
and cattle products has been slight as compared with 
that in cereals. It has been stated on good authority 
that throughout the period of agricultural depression, 
the exchange value of cheese and butter — that is, the 
amount of tea, sugar, manufactured goods, or other 
necessities which a given quantity of these products 
would purchase, has been as great as it ever was 
before. 

The farmer of Ontario is beginning to find out that 
in producing wheat only he commits himself to the 
chances of competition not merely with the easily 
tilled expanses of the fertile prairie, but also with the 
poorly paid and poorly fed peasant of India, Russia, and 
South America. The higher form of product demands 
greater intelligence and expenditure of thought, but 
gives a larger and more reliable return. 

Ontario supplies much the larger proportion of the 
cheese and live cattle which the Dominion sends to 
England, and now aims at increasing its output of 
butter, especially during the winter season, in alternation 
with the cheese making of the summer. 

Ontario is the province also which has benefited most 
largely by the protective policy ; manufactures of great 
importance have sprung up at many points. In agri- 
cultural implements, pianos and cabinet organs, sewing 
machines, carriages, furniture, and railway plant, the 
people of Ontario could now probably hold their own in 

H 



98 The Great Dominion chap. 

the markets of the world without protection. Large 
shipments of farming tools are now being made to 
Australia, the British manufacturer not yet having 
sufficiently learned the art, common to American and 
Canadian, of making tools which combine a maximum 
of strength with a minimum of weight, the special 
requirement of warm countries. The coarser forms 
of cotton manufacture have also advanced rapidly in 
Canada, but this centres chiefly in Montreal and the 
Lower Provinces, where the French population furnishes 
a cheap and steady supply of factory labour. The same 
is true of the sugar-refining industry, which has made 
immense strides under the national policy. Raw sugar 
is now admitted free of duty, and in this important 
poor man's luxury the Canadian is almost on a level 
with the British consumer, as he is on a higher level 
in respect of tea and coffee, which are untaxed. The 
" free breakfast table " has had much to do with recon- 
ciling the farmer and working man of Canada to a 
revenue system otherwise pressing heavily upon them. 
Among the cities of Ontario, Toronto, the capital, 
tends to become the literary and intellectual centre of 
the Dominion, and almost the rival of Montreal in com- 
mercial prestige. Its population is close upon 200,000. 
The largest and most influential daily newspapers of the 
Dominion are published here ; those of the larger city 
of Montreal being somewhat handicapped by appearing 
in the midst of a bi-lingual population. The state- 
supported University and the well-endowed collegiate 
institutions of several religious bodies adorn Toronto 



v Eastern Canada 99 

with groups of fine buildings, and give it a consider- 
able learned society. 

The situation of the city immediately upon Lake 
Ontario mitigates the severity of inland summer heat. 
Boating clubs and yachting clubs around the harbour 
illustrate the tastes and amusements of the people, and 
explain the aquatic reputation of the place. By means 
of good steamboat connection across the lake, and of 
the electric railway, Niagara has been brought within 
the limit of a day's pleasant outing. On summer after- 
noons and evenings the populace streams across in cheap 
ferryboats to the Island which fronts the harbour, to 
enjoy the fresh breezes of the lake. In default of the 
sea shore, fashionable Toronto escapes, for outdoor life 
in holiday time, to the charming Muskoka Lake district, 
a hundred miles to the north, the numerous islands of 
which are becoming dotted with the huts, cottages or 
villas of its summer visitors. 

Altogether Toronto has advantages which make it, 
among the cities of the Empire, a distinctly pleasant 
place in which to live. It has been ambitious, and like 
other ambitious communities has suffered in late years 
from over-speculation in real estate, and from building 
in advance of the actual wants of the population. But 
the lesson of moderation was quickly learned, and its 
prosperity has had no permanent check. 

In sentiment Toronto is intensely British. The 
foundation of the place by United Empire Loyalists 
after the American Revolution, and the part which it 
has taken in various crises of Canadian history since 

H 2 



ioo The Great Dominion > chap. 



that time, sufficiently account for the peculiar strength 
of this feeling. The remark applies equally to much 
of Southern Ontario, which owes its early settlement 
chiefly to the Loyalist migration. In the war of 1812 
its borders formed the chief line of attack and defence. 
Along them are found the battle-fields on which aggres- 
sion was resisted, and security won for Canadian terri- 
tory. Noble tradition has thus been added to original 
sentiment to form a persistent and active force which 
still profoundly influences the whole community. 

Hamilton, beautifully situated on a bay at the head 
of Lake Ontario, with London and Woodstock further 
inland, are other towns of the province which derive a 
very marked prosperity chiefly from being the centres 
of splendid agricultural districts. Kingston, at the foot 
of Lake Ontario, has a history dating back to the early 
days of French occupation, and is now the seat of a 
flourishing University, and of the Military College of 
the Dominion. 

Ottawa, the political capital of the Dominion, is also 
in Ontario. When selected in 1858 to be the seat of 
government, it was a remote and unimportant lumber- 
ing village, chosen as a compromise between the rival 
claims of Montreal, Quebec and Toronto. Since that 
time it has grown rapidly and has now 50,000 inhabit- 
ants. Canadians are proud, and with some reason, of 
the Parliament buildings. Favoured by a splendid site 
on a high bluff overlooking the Ottawa River and the 
Chaudiere Falls, their architectural effect is distinctly 
imposing. The buildings are a monument to the fore- 



Eastern Canada 101 



sight of Sir John Macdonald. It was chiefly under 
his guidance that, years before confederation was an 
accomplished fact, construction was begun and con- 
tinued with resolute reference to the future greatness 
of the country. Ottawa continues to be the centre of 
an extensive lumbering industry, and the saw-mills 
along the river, with the pulp-mills which utilise the 
refuse wood, are the main dependence of the labouring 
population. The outskirts of the city still indicate its 
recent origin, or perhaps the inability of municipal 
government to keep pace with the wants of a rapidly 
growing community. Possibly the perfection of the 
tram system which reaches out in all directions, driven, 
lighted, and in winter warmed with electricity obtained 
by utilising the Chaudiere Falls, makes attention to 
suburban streets a secondary question. Many think 
that the American plan of making the seat of the 
general government an area exclusively under federal 
control might have been adopted with advantage at 
Ottawa. 

Passing by the Province of Quebec for the present, as 
requiring individual treatment, I go on to the Maritime 
Provinces — New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince 
Edward Island — where the population is practically ho- 
mogeneous with that of Ontario. One geographical fact 
makes the relation of these provinces to the Dominion 
and to the Empire of the utmost significance. They 
contain the only good ports on the eastern coast of 
Canada open to navigation in all seasons of the year. 
As a harbour Halifax ranks among the best in the 



102 The Great Dominion chap. 



world, as a naval station among the most important in 
the Empire. The whole British navy could float, with 
room to spare, at the splendid anchorage in Bedford 
Basin. The harbour is strongly fortified, the length 
and narrowness of the entrance channel making it singu- 
larly adapted to defence. When two or three more 
guns of the heaviest metal and most modern type have 
been placed in the casemates prepared for them, when 
a complete search-light system has been installed, and 
telegraphic and telephonic communication completed 
between the various forts and batteries, Halifax har- 
bour will be practically unassailable. Those whose 
professional opinion is entitled to great weight com- 
plain of an incredible hesitation on the part of the 
authorities in adding these final touches which are 
necessary to give full effect to a position already so 
nearly impregnable. Halifax has direct cable connec- 
tion with Bermuda, which stands only second to it in 
importance as a station for the North Atlantic 
Squadron. This Bermuda cable has been laid almost 
exclusively for strategic purposes, and under im- 
perial subsidy. It should be extended at once to 
the West Indies, not merely to establish connection 
with the remaining stations at St. Lucia and Kingston, 
but for commercial reasons in which Canada, the 
West Indian Islands, and the mother country are 
alike interested. Telegraphic communication with the 
islands is now carried on entirely through the United 
States, and at heavy rates. 

St. John, on the Bay of Fundy, stands next in im- 



v Eastern Canada 103 

portance to Halifax. As a commercial port it has the 
advantage over the latter of saving two or three hundred 
miles of land carriage to the Western Provinces. The 
harbour has often been represented as difficult of access 
on account of fog, but reliable statistics seem to prove 
that there is no real ground for this opinion. St. John 
has an important commerce, and is likely to have more, 
but it is practically undefended. I know of no place of 
equal importance in any part of the empire which 
would in time of war be so entirely at the mercy of 
any one who chose to attack it. Halifax owes its 
defence to the imperial treasury; that of- St. John — 
and the opportunity for either torpedo or battery 
defence is excellent — might well be undertaken by the 
Dominion Government. 

There are several minor ports. It has already been 
pointed out that Louisburg in Cape Breton, long since 
fallen into decay, could easily be transformed, if neces- 
sary, into a well-defended coaling station. 

The industrial position in the Maritime Provinces 
during the last fifteen or twenty years has been very 
peculiar. For a long time the chief industries, those 
which occupied the great mass of the population, were 
lumbering, shipbuilding, and fishing. The finest pine 
timber has now become partially exhausted. Spruce 
timber, which at present constitutes the principal ex- 
port, grows on soil not very well suited for agriculture, 
reproduces itself rapidly if the forests are protected 
from fire, and will therefore remain a permanent in- 
dustry, though not one capable of maintaining a large 



104 The Great Dominion chap. 

population. Besides, the timber trade is very uncer- 
tain, and subject to serious fluctuations from variation 
of snowfall and flood, as well as from ordinary commer- 
cial competition. 

The substitution of iron for wood in shipbuilding has 
had a disastrous effect upon several formerly prosperous 
communities. Places like St. John and Yarmouth, 
which twenty-five years ago had more tonnage afloat in 
proportion to population than any places of equal size 
in the world, have seen the carrying trade which brought 
them wealth gradually slipping away without the chance 
of recovery, and in the effort to maintain an almost 
hopeless contest many large shipping firms have come 
to grief. 

The fishing and agricultural industries have been 
seriously affected by American legislation ; in the case 
of agriculture chiefly from want of organisation among 
the people to meet new conditions. 

All these circumstances have weighed heavily against 
the provinces. The destruction by fire in 1877 of 
nearly the whole city of St. John, and the consequent 
ruin, though in many cases delayed a few years, of 
leading commercial firms, made the situation worse. 
The city has shown remarkable elasticity in retrieving 
its losses, but the effects of such a blow long remain. 
The falling off of the West Indian trade left Halifax for 
a time without one of its chief means of support, but this 
is now again reviving. Once more, the opening of the 
prairies of the North-West has not only had the effect 
of carrying the tide of immigration almost entirely 



v Eastern Canada 105 

westward past Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, but 
has also drained away a proportion of the young and 
enterprising population. As a consequence the increase 
of population during the decade between 1881 and 1891 
was very slight indeed. The facts which I have men- 
tioned are quite sufficient to account for severe depres- 
sion in any communities not having extraordinary 
energy. But there has been a lack, among the mass of 
the people, even of such energy and adaptability to 
changing conditions as might fairly have been expected. 
This is perfectly manifest to the observer who has the 
opportunity of making comparison with other commu- 
nities, but would require too much space to discuss 
fully here. Partly a business fatalism, the offspring, I 
think, of long subjection to the incalculable chances of 
the lumber and fishing industries ; partly careless habits 
of farm work induced by the same employments ; partly 
the hope constantly indulged of help from some god's 
hand thrust out from the political machine ; this, 
perhaps, embodies in the fewest possible words what 
one wishes to express. Surely nowhere in our wide 
British Empire, or in any other country, have so much 
talent, effort, and time been spent in trying to squeeze 
public and private prosperity out of politics as in the 
Maritime Provinces of Canada. The attempt has not 
succeeded ; the provinces by the sea, though with most 
varied resources, remain comparatively poor, while 
Ontario grows increasingly rich, and Montreal begins to 
add up its long lists of millionaires. A high average of 
comfort widely prevails, but there are few examples of 



106 The Great Dominion chap. 

the great business success often achieved in other parts 
of the Dominion. 

But it must not be thought that the poorer 
provinces are without their compensations for the 
present or their hopes for the future. I am not sure 
that both are not such as fairly to balance the 
situation. If these provinces have not the prestige 
of wealth, they have the severer and, as some may 
think, the higher glory of moral influence and intel- 
lectual power. One of the most remarkable facts 
connected with the growth of federated Canada has 
been the influence — quite disproportionate to popu- 
lation — of the public men of the Maritime Provinces 
in the Councils of the Dominion. Ontario owed to 
Scotland Sir John Macdonald, George Brown, Alexander 
Mackenzie, and Sir Alexander Gait. Montreal also has 
drawn its merchant princes and organizers of industry 
chiefly from Scotland and England. The smaller 
provinces have bred their own men, and they need not 
be ashamed of the type. No doubt it was Sir John 
Macdonald's mind, with its Imperial turn of thought, 
which first fully grasped the idea of a United Canada 
as a part of a United Empire, but no one who knows 
the prejudices and problems he had to face believes 
that he could ever have realized his dream without 
having had at his back the political fighting energy 
of Sir Charles Tupper and the remarkable financial 
prudence and ability of Sir Leonard Tilley, the one 
a son of Nova Scotia, the other of New Brunswick. 
When the veteran Premier died, the first and second 



Eastern Canada 



107 



choice for a successor, after the temporary leadership of 
Sir John Abbott, was from among Maritime Province 
men. 

The late Premier of the Dominion, Sir John 
Thompson, the Minister of Marine in his Cabinet, Sir 
Hibbert Tupper, and the scientific specialist, Dr. 
Dawson, who contributed so much by their services to 
secure a favourable issue for the Behring Sea award 
— work which was warmly recognized by the Imperial 
Government — are all Maritime Province men. Those 
who know most of the conduct of the Halifax Fisheries 
Commission in 1877, the first great national arbitration 
won by Great Britain, are aware that success was 
largely due to the presentation of the British case by 
the late Mr. S. R. Thompson, the brilliant New Bruns- 
wick advocate. The present able Finance Minister, 
Hon. George E. Foster, is from the same province, as 
was the late Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of 
the Dominion. 

This range of influence is not confined to politics and 
law. Very singular it is to observe how these com- 
paratively poor provinces, with their simple and some- 
times rigorous conditions of life, are furnishing brains 
to other parts of the continent. Sir William Dawson 
the distinguished scientist and head of M'Gill College, 
Montreal; Principal Grant, of Queen's University, 
Kingston ; Dr. Rand, President of the new M'Master 
University at Toronto; Dr. Bourinot, of Ottawa, the 
keen analyst and exponent of Federal Government; 
Dr. Schurman, President of Cornell University, New 



108 The Great Dominion chap. 

York; Professor Simon Newcomb, of the Washington 
Observatory, admittedly one of the foremost astro- 
nomers of the world ; Archbishop O'Brien, the most- 
conspicuous figure of the Roman Catholic Church in 
Eastern Canada, are all from the same provinces. So 
are Charles Roberts and Bliss Carman, whose names as 
poets, well known in Canada and the United States, 
are also beginning to be known in England, and who, 
whatever estimate critics may ultimately put upon 
their work, are certainly genuine outgrowths of their 
native soil, and catch their inspirations from the con- 
ditions amid which they live. Professorships, editorial 
chairs, and the pulpits of all denominations, not only 
across the breadth of the Dominion from Quebec to 
Vancouver, but through the Eastern and Western 
States, are in a singularly large proportion supplied 
from the same source. 

Britain herself owes no small debt to these Maritime 
Provinces. They gave her General Fenwick Williams, 
the hero of Kars, whose name will always be associated 
with one of the most brilliant episodes in our country's 
military history, as well as Sir Provo Wallis, whose 
memory is still fresh in the minds of English people. 
Inglis of Lucknow was the son of a Nova Scotian 
Bishop. Stairs, Robinson, and Mackay, the three 
brilliant Canadian youths who have laid down their 
lives for the Empire in Africa within the last two or 
three years, were all from the Maritime Provinces. 
Samuel Cunard, whose wise and far-sighted plans laid 
the foundations of what has long been the most 



v Eastern Canada 109 

perfect steamship service in the world, and gave Great 
Britain the foremost place, which she has always 
retained, in this great field of national enterprise, 
worked out these plans in his native city of Halifax. 
A whole range of modern humorous literature took 
its rise from the fertile brain of Haliburton, the Avise 
and witty Nova Scotian Judge. His friend Joseph 
Howe, with extraordinary prescience, anticipated by 
forty years nearly all that statesmen and thinkers 
are now saying about the unity of the Empire, and 
advocated it with a warmth of eloquence and power 
of statement as yet absolutely unmatched. The more 
serious work of Haliburton, too, embodies some of 
the earliest and best discussions of the same question, 
and the writings of these two men make it clear that 
in the remote province of Nova Scotia there existed 
half a century ago a foresight in national affairs not 
then found in the central councils of the Empire. 

This is a long list, but it is worth going over. It 
is not at all clear that in the longer judgments of 
history the people of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, 
and Prince Edward Island will be thought to have 
sufficient reason for envying the material prosperity 
of Ontario and the millionaires of Montreal. 

But to me the business possibilities of these pro- 
vinces in the future, given well-directed energy, 
enterprise, and thought, seem in the highest degree 
promising. Fisheries, coal mines, forests, gold-bearing 
quartz reefs, iron, gypsum, and lime deposits are all 
large and fairly remunerative fields of industry. 



no The Great Dominion chap. 

A good deal still remains to be done to improve the 
profits of the fisheries, by studying the requirements 
of the best markets. 

The methods of curing fish are often inferior — the 
result, probably, of much trade with the negro popula- 
tion of the West Indies and other tropical countries, 
among whom the standard of quality is low. 

Coal mines already do well, and will do better as 
the market widens. Iron presents greater difficulties. 
The iron ores of Nova Scotia are excellent in quality 
and unlimited in quantity. At New Glasgow, the chief 
centre of manufacture, they are in immediate proximity 
to coal and limestone, so that all the natural condi- 
tions seem most favourable. As iron is one of the 
highly protected industries of the Dominion, one 
studied the growth of the manufacture here with 
special interest. There is a considerable output of 
pig iron, and large steel works. The most striking 
energy and skill have been shown in the organization 
of the industry, but still there is lacking something to 
complete success. 

One finds that the cheap water transport across 
the Atlantic, which hits the farmer in England so 
hard, equally hits the iron master in Canada, since 
iron can be conveyed from Glasgow to Montreal for 
a mere fraction of what it costs to carry it by rail from 
New Glasgow to the Upper Provinces ; this cancels 
at once fully half the advantage derived from the pro- 
tective tariff of ten dollars a ton. Water trans- 
port is available at New Glasgow also, but special 



v Eastern Canada 1 1 1 

circumstances make carriage by rail necessary in 
most cases. 

Iron, again, is a material which particularly requires 
a wide market for the cheapest production. The 
special machinery used is expensive, and almost as 
much is required to give a small finished output as 
a large one in any given line. Hence small orders are 
not filled with much profit. 

The conclusion I formed was that though iron manu- 
facture in Canada is not a failure, it is not yet a 
brilliant success. An immense production of iron and 
steel at cheap rates has been the result of protection 
in the United States, but that end has not yet been 
attained in the Dominion. 

There was a prevalent opinion in the early days of 
Confederation that the Maritime Provinces were to 
become in manufacturing to the rest of Canada what 
New England has been to the West of the United 
States. That expectation has not been realized, and 
may be still remote. But there are other opportunities. 
The farming resources of these provinces have only as 
yet been tapped. Let the earnestness and common effort 
so long turned upon party politics be bent more fully 
upon agricultural improvement ; let something better be 
substituted for the present careless, rough-and-ready 
methods of farming and marketing; let cheese and 
butter factories be established everywhere at intervals 
of a few miles, as in Ontario, over which the provinces 
have the greatest possible advantage in pasturage ; let 
a thoroughly organized means of rapid transit with cold 



1 1 2 The Great Dominion chap. 

storage be provided to England; let rigid inspection 
and grading of all products before shipping — apples, 
hay, butter, cheese, fish, poultry, eggs, &c. — be pro- 
vided, and the people of the Maritime Provinces will 
awake to find out that they hold an almost unequalled 
position with relation to external markets. Better trade 
conditions are evidently soon coming with the United 
States. The Provinces will then stand practically mid- 
way between, and in easy sea communication with, the 
two richest purchasing communities of the world — one 
actually free to their products, and the other on the 
way to become so — communities which will be com- 
peting for their products, and are ready to pay 
the highest price for everything which is of the very 

best. 

It has been said that the Maritime Provinces have 

special advantages over those of the St. Lawrence in 

pasturage. This is in large part due to the greater 

dampness of the climate caused by the vicinity of the 

sea and the mists borne in from the Gulf Stream, but 

partly to other conditions. 

The rushing tides of the upper part of the Bay of 

Fundy carry in their waters a fine detritus with 

curiously fertilizing properties. For a considerable 

distance inland along the rivers which flow into the 

Bay from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, there have 

been formed by the deposit of this material large areas 

of marsh land of well nigh inexhaustible fertility. The 

broad marshes of Tantramar, Grand Pre, and other 

similar districts produce to-day the same luxuriant 



Eastern Canada 



"3 



crops of hay that they did when they were dyked, and 
so rescued from the sea a century and a half ago by the 
early Acadian settlers. Meanwhile they have received 
no fertilization save that which has come from an 
occasional overflow of the tide and a new deposit of 
the marsh mud. Scarcely inferior to these marshes 
are the intervalle lands found along the large rivers of 
New Brunswick. Prince Edward Island, again, has a 
soil of great natural fertility, while for agricultural 
purposes the island possesses a unique advantage in 
immense deposits of " mussel mud " — the decayed 
organic remains of various kinds of shell fish — which, 
in the course of centuries, has accumulated to a great 
depth in the bays and river mouths of the coast. 
Raised by dredging through the ice during the winter 
months and applied to the soil, this proves a most 
valuable fertilizer, and adds greatly to the productive 
capacity of the island. 

As a fruit-growing country Nova Scotia stands only 
second to Ontario. The orchards of the Annapolis 
and Cornwallis valleys are famed far and wide, and 
the export of apples to both Britain and the United 
States has already grown to large proportions. In 
the interests of this industry a school of horticulture 
has been opened at Wolfville, under the auspices of 
the Nova Scotia government. For emigrants with a 
moderate amount of capital, willing to acquire some 
skill in horticulture, and aiming at a life of modest 
independence amid pleasant surroundings, I know of 
few places throughout the empire which would seem 

I 



1 14 The Great Dominion chap. 

more attractive than these picturesque orchard dis- 
tricts of Nova Scotia. 

Of the Maritime Provinces generally it may be said 
that the climatic conditions are singularly favourable. 
Nearness to the sea mitigates alike the heat of summer 
and the cold of winter. The tide of tourist travel is 
now turning this way, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence 
and Bay of Fundy, with their cool breezes and beauti- 
ful scenery, promise to become one of the chief summer 
resorts of dwellers in the heated inland regions of 
America. 

Although manufactures have increased much in the 
Dominion, agriculture is still, and will be, the main- 
stay of general prosperity in Eastern as well as 
Western Canada, in Ontario as well as in the Maritime 
Provinces. It still offers a sufficient opening for emi- 
grants, but under very different circumstances from 
those of the West. The attraction of the prairies, the 
facility with which farms are created there, have dur- 
ing late years diverted emigration from the wooded 
Eastern Provinces. But a wooded farm has its very 
distinct advantages, although involving more pre- 
liminary labour. Plenty of timber for building and 
fencing, abundance of fuel close at hand, occupation 
during the winter season, shelter from the extreme 
severity of winter — all these are weighty considerations 
in fixing a home. Hardy working men, especially 
those accustomed to the use of an axe, or willing to 
acquire it, not afraid of a fourteen or fifteen hours day 
during the summer, balanced by the hope of greater 



v Eastern Canada 115 

leisure in the winter, still have, in my opinion, an 
excellent opportunity to make comfortable homes for 
themselves and provide a healthy life for their families 
by taking up the unsettled woodland districts of 
Eastern Canada, where ungranted lands of excellent 
quality can still be obtained on easy terms. Railways 
have been so extensively built in all the provinces that 
nowhere will the settler be far removed from ready 
access to markets and civilization, and the severe pri- 
vations and the isolation of the early pioneers of the 
country need not be undergone. 

Such things are largely a matter of personal incli- 
nation, but I must confess, after much observation of 
the two sides of Canadian life, that the East would 
have for me the greater attraction. The nearness of 
the sea, the varied scenery and range of industry, the 
easier access to the best educational advantages, or to 
European and American markets and social centres, 
weigh heavily against what is the supreme advantage 
of the West — facility in the immediate creation of a 
farm. 

To emigrants who may prefer to undertake to make 
a farm in the same way that all those of Eastern 
Canada have hitherto been made — that is, from forest 
land — there are still many opportunities. In ISTova 
Scotia and Prince Edward Island most of the better 
land has already been taken up by settlers. In the 
northern part of New Brunswick, however, between 
and along the rivers Restigouche, Tobique and 
Miramichi, there are tracts containing some millions 

1 2 



1 1 6 The Great Dominion chap. 

of acres almost entirely unsettled and only partially 
explored, but known to contain large blocks of fertile 
land. As the good soil alternates with much of an 
inferior quality only suited for timber growth, great 
care should be used by the immigrant in getting com- 
petent and reliable advice before selecting a spot for 
his farm. It is to be feared that carelessness on the 
part of government in allowing people to settle on 
inferior soils has in the past done something to 
diminish that contentment which induces further 
immigration. 

In the northern part of Ontario, again, there is 
another large area of still ungranted forest land which 
recent explorations have shown to be as well adapted 
for settlement as much of that which now constitutes 
the best farming lands of the province. 

One hesitates about advising the old country emigrant 
to face this forest life. It is true that thousands have 
succeeded under like conditions before. But his ignor- 
ance of backwood arts handicaps him heavily, and it 
takes some time to acquire the easy use of the axe — 
the one implement upon which he must constantly 
depend. On the whole it is better that the pioneer 
work of such districts should be left to native settlers, 
while new comers should settle on farms partly 
cleared. 

Besides the labouring man who looks forward to 
making a home by dint of sheer work, Eastern Canada 
offers very distinct opportunities to other classes of 
British people. First among these may be placed what 



v Eastern Canada 1 1 7 

are known in England as tenant-farmers; men who 
would bring some capital, together with skill for 
agricultural work, to their new homes. A fair degree 
of flexibility in adapting themselves to new conditions 
of climate and farm management would seem to me all 
that is necessary to insure for such men reasonable 
and perhaps very considerable success, better on the 
whole than what is now easily gained in Great Britain. 
For settlers of this class the condition of things in the 
older provinces makes the present a favourable time 
for migration. Land values have decreased of late in 
Canada as in England, and it is easy to buy farms 
partly improved and with buildings on them at a 
reasonable rate. 

I also think that people with a fixed income of from 
£200 to £400 a year, with simple habits and a liking 
for country life, and with families to bring up, would 
make their money go further and improve the prospects 
of their children by buying small and manageable 
places in many districts of the older parts of Canada. 
Near all the smaller provincial towns, Windsor, 
Amherst, Fredericton, Kingston, London, Woodstock, 
and a dozen others which might be mentioned, they 
would find many of the advantages of pleasant society, 
cheap education, and comfortable living to an extent 
which their money will not command in the crowded 
old country, and which they cannot obtain for years to 
come in the thinly-settled West. 

The fact that there are partly improved farms to be 
bought cheaply in the East is no indication that these 



1 1 8 The Great Dominion chap. 

farms are useless or cannot be made profitable. Every- 
body who knows America knows that the pioneer spirit 
sometimes runs through whole classes of society like a 
fever; it induces people to give up what is good on 
the mere hope of finding what is better ; it leads them 
to despise the solid advantages of settled society for 
the uncertain chances of new regions. I remember 
in a visit to the American West., twenty-five years ago, 
hearing a Wisconsin farmer saying with all seriousness 
that he would not exchange a thousand acres of 
Western farm land for a whole township in the Eastern 
States, which were his old home. The sentiment was 
not peculiar ; the whole Western atmosphere was full 
of it at the time. Yet the ordinary observer could see 
that it was clearly a mania ; the choice of advantages 
was in reality very nicely balanced. A wave of like 
feeling has been passing over Eastern Canada during 
the last ten years — in the Maritime Provinces stimulated 
by the circumstances to which I have before referred ; 
the men who go to the West may or may not find the 
success they look for ; those who take their places, if 
men of moderate desires, may congratulate themselves 
on reaping solid advantage from the adventurous spirit 
of their predecessors. 

To men with moderate capital, wishing to avail 
themselves of such opportunities as I have described, a 
word of counsel may be given. English experience 
does not furnish any reliable guide for buying land and 
stock in Canada, and emigrants of the class I speak of 
must take this into consideration. Two suggestions 



v Eastern Canada 119 

for new-comers from Britain occur to me. One is the 
sharpening of their own wits a bit, before making their 
purchases. If a man with some capital who wants to 
settle in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, or Ontario, is in 
a position to engage himself quietly as a labourer for a 
year or so on a farm, keep his eyes open, and thus, 
while gaining experience, get a true idea of land and 
stock values in Canada, he would be in an excellent 
position to deal on fair terms ; at any rate, he should 
spend some time in careful examination of the country 
before purchasing. A second method of more general 
application may be suggested, and I think it deserves 
careful consideration. The governments of the older 
provinces profess to be anxious to draw out settlers of 
the type I have referred to — tenant-farmers and others 
with a small capital. Let them appoint perfectly com- 
petent men in the various districts, to whom new- 
comers could be officially referred for sound advice on 
farm values, or even for arbitration if necessary. If 
the services of thoroughly reliable men could be secured 
this would give an assurance of fair treatment to the 
inexperienced, which does not now exist, and which is 
greatly required. As I have said in treating of the 
West, the contented settler is the best of all emigration 
agents, and I believe that this method of guarding 
against discontent is reasonable and practicable. 

Something must still be said of the remarkable 
maritime position of Eastern Canada, and of what has 
been done to improve it. I have previously spoken of 
the great expenditure made by Canadians to get in 



120 The Great Dominion 



CHAP. 



railway touch with their vast Western heritage. But 
railways are far from representing the full measure of 
their efforts in this direction. The canal system and 
the means taken to create it deserve study. No 
country in the world has such a marvellous system of 
natural inland navigation as Canada. After one has 
fairly entered Canadian waters at the Straits of 
Belleisle, there are still 2,259 miles of navigation to 
the head of Lake Superior, a distance slightly greater 
than the sea voyage from Liverpool to Belleisle. But 
at several places this line is broken by shallows, falls, 
or rapids, and to overcome these has been a work of no 
slight difficulty. It is not so many years since a large 
seagoing steamship could not ascend the St. Lawrence 
from Quebec to Montreal. The dredging of a channel 
through Lake St. Peter has changed all this, and so 
given Montreal her true position as the Liverpool of 
Canada. This very considerable undertaking has also 
made it possible for ironclads to ascend the river to the 
same port — a fact which I have not hitherto seen noted 
as a new element in the defensive conditions of the 
Empire. 

In all it has been necessary to construct over 
seventy miles of canal, the rapids of the St. Lawrence, 
the peninsula through which the river Niagara flows, 
and the Sault Ste. Marie offering the chief points of 
obstruction. The (300 feet which represent the 
difference of level between the tidewater on the St. 
Lawrence and Lake Superior are overcome by no fewer 
than fifty-three locks. Canada has already spent upon 



v Eastern Canada 121 

her canals nearly $60,000,000 ; their completion to an 
average depth of fourteen feet, so as to accommodate 
seagoing vessels, is now being pushed forward with 
much energy. A convention of business men, from 
Western Canada and the United States, has considered 
at Toronto the question of deepening them to twenty- 
one feet, and has passed resolutions urging the advis- 
ability of such a course. Montreal is naturally not 
enthusiastic about a project which would make Toronto 
and other points on the great Lakes ports for ocean- 
going vessels, and a scheme of such magnitude will 
take a good while to mature. That this canal system 
will in any case gradually become the outlet for an 
enormous traffic cannot be questioned. It is already 
very considerable. Nearly 1,000,000 tons of freight 
were moved in 1893 on the Welland Canal, between 
Lakes Erie and Ontario ; as much more on the canals of 
the St. Lawrence ; and 650,000 tons on those of the 
Ottawa. Although I had previously studied the 
figures, I must confess that the proportions which the 
commerce of the inland lakes of America has already 
assumed came to me, on actual examination, as a 
surprise. It is at the Sault Ste. Marie canal, the point 
of connection between Lake Huron and Lake Superior, 
that the volume of this traffic makes the most vivid 
impression upon the imagination. The single lock in 
operation there on the American side, when I visited 
the place, holds three or four large vessels or barges at 
a time. The ship in which we were to cross Lake 
Superior, one of the fine vessels of the Canadian 



122 The Great Dominion chap. 

Pacific line, came to the foot of the canal, which is 
only about a mile long, at noon on Sunday. But, 
though the lock was filled and emptied as rapidly as 
possible all the rest of the afternoon, it was night 
before our turn came to enter, so great was the pressure 
of shipping. The work goes on by night as well as by 
da}^, and throughout the seven days of the week. The 
canal is open only about 220 days during the year, 
but during the last two seasons the shipping passing 
through it has exceeded by one or two million tons 
that which goes through the Suez Canal. After 
making allowance for the fact that the voyages are 
much shorter than those made by vessels using the 
Suez Canal, and the cargoes less valuable, enough 
remains to make this picture of water-borne commerce 
at the heart of the continent a very remarkable one. 
But its development, hitherto chiefly American, and on 
the south side of the lake, has only begun. Prepara- 
tions on. a large scale are being made for the vast 
expansion which is sure to come. On the American 
side a second and larger lock is being constructed, 
while on the northern side of the falls, a mile away, the 
Canadian Government has constructed a third, more 
capacious than either of the American ones, at an 
expense of between $3,000,000 and $4,000,000. I 
think that this lock is the largest in the world. It is 
900 feet long, 60 feet wide, and 20 feet 3 inches deep- 
Now that it is completed there is a clear Canadian 
waterway for ships from Fort William to the Atlantic. 
American shipping already uses Canadian canals to the 



v Eastern Canada 123 

extent of about 600,000 tons per annum. This canal 
system furnishes a striking proof of the prevailing east- 
ward and westward trend of the trade. It is an equally 
striking proof of the community of trade interest 
between the East and the West. The large expenditure 
already made by the East to improve these waterways 
can only be fully compensated for by Eastern ports be- 
coming the outlet towards Europe of Western 
products, the distributing points from which the West 
will receive its imports. 

Further east, at the southern part of the Gulf of 
St. Lawrence, a remarkable enterprise, which it seems 
most natural to mention in connection with the canal 
system of Canada, and which is practically a part of 
it, has been brought almost to completion. In order 
to avoid the somewhat dangerous coast of Nova Scotia, 
and to save from 500 to 700 miles of navigation, a 
a ship railway is being constructed, instead of the 
canal long thought of, across the Isthmus of Chig- 
necto, to connect the navigation of the St. Lawrence 
with that of the Bay of Fundy. About $4,000,000 
have now been spent upon this work, and to complete 
it an expenditure of about $1,500,000 more is required. 
When the works were nearing completion the opera- 
tions were suspended as a result of the financial 
difficulties arising out of the Baring failure and the 
condition of affairs in Argentina, where the contractor 
for the railway was involved in very heavy engage- 
ments. But it is impossible to believe that so im- 
portant an undertaking will be left unfinished after 



124 The Great Dominion chap. 

so large an expenditure has already been incurred, 
and there is reason to believe that the work will soon 
be resumed. The inception and execution of the 
project furnish a remarkable example of courage in 
supporting a novel enterprise on the part of the 
Canadian Government, and of persevering energy on 
the part of the Canadian engineer, Mr. H. G. C. 
Ketchum, its projector. The idea of transporting 
laden ships over seventeen miles of railway from sea 
to sea was at first met with ridicule and incredulity. 
But Mr. Ketchum, by dint of hard argument, secured 
for his plans in succession the support and endorse- 
ment of the local communities, of the leading provincial 
journals, of the boards of trade in the neighbouring 
towns, and finally of the Dominion Parliament, which, 
after full discussion, voted a subsidy of something over 
SI 70,000 per annum for twenty years in support of the 
undertaking. Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker, 
the distinguished English engineers, are now associated 
with him in responsibility for the satisfactory construc- 
tion of the work. Finally, financiers and contractors 
were found to undertake its execution, and, though 
the latter have been temporarily embarrassed by a 
financial crisis almost without precedent, there is little 
doubt that the work will yet be completed. Without 
being able to bring to the subject the knowledge or 
judgment of an expert, I personally believe that the 
undertaking, backed as it is by the Dominion subsidy, 
will succeed, and will do much to develop the great re- 
sources in coal, timber, building stone, fish, and agri- 



Eastern Canada 



125 



cultural produce of the Gulf districts especially, for 
which better trade relations with the States will open 
up a very large market in New England, while the 
Bay of Fundy ports will be put in easy touch with 
the West. But of this commercial aspect of the 
question it is for financiers and traders to judge. They 
have before them all the data by which the Dominion 
Parliament and other representative bodies were origin- 
ally convinced of the merits of the undertaking. 

It would seem that the railway might also be of 
great service, in case of necessity, for coast defence, 
through the facility it would give of transferring gun- 
boats of moderate tonnage or torpedo-boats from one 
side of the isthmus to the other. I had an opportunity 
of looking over a portion of the line. The greater part 
of the roadway, the heavy stone work, and the ex- 
cavations for the terminal docks are completed — in all, 
about three-fourths of the work, the whole presenting 
a remarkable example of solid construction, apparently 
quite equal to the heavy work the line will have to do. 

It will be a striking fact if the completion and 
successful operation of this Canadian undertaking 
prove definitely the advantage, as its promoters claim 
it will do, of railway transportation for laden ships, 
since it cannot but profoundly affect opinion in regard 
to other even more important points of commercial 
transit, 

I have dwelt upon these matters somewhat in detail, 
because I wish to show with what quiet but persistent 
energy and foresight Eastern Canada is supplementing 



126 The Great Dominion 



CHAP, v 



its great natural advantages, and laying broadly the 
basis of commercial expansion. When it is remem- 
bered that the Dominion, in addition to her vast 
expenditure on railways and canals for inland develop- 
ment, is also heavily subsidizing steamship routes to 
Japan and China, to the West Indies and to Australia, 
and that she is entering into engagements to support 
still more energetically a Transatlantic service of the 
first class, and a new Imperial cable system across the 
Pacific, I think a sufficient answer is given to Mr. 
Goldwin Smith when he claims that provincial feeling 
still dominates the public life of the Dominion. 



CHAPTER VI 

eastern Canada. — Continued 

Quebec 

The French Canadian question is the crux of 
politics in the Dominion. It does not present so many 
difficulties or arouse such bitter animosities as does the 
Irish question in Britain ; it is not so impracticable as 
the race and colour questions which are clouding the 
national horizon in the United States ; it does not 
even seem to me so perplexing as the questions which 
the contact of a temperate and tropical climate, and 
therefore of strong and weak races, is beginning to 
produce in Australia, but still it is difficult, and for a 
good while to come will test the temper, the tact, and 
the patriotism of the Canadian people, whether French 
or English. 

In some of its aspects, however, there has been of 
late a tendency to exaggerate the magnitude of the 
question. People in England were so accustomed less 
than a generation ago to think of Canada as a country 
chiefly inhabited by Frenchmen, they were so con- 



128 The Great Dominion chap. 

scions of the fact that the presence of a French element 
dominated all questions of Canadian policy, that the 
impression has scarcely yet died away. It is well, 
therefore, to form an accurate idea of the place which 
Quebec and the French Canadian hold and are likely 
to hold in the Dominion. 

At the time of confederation in 1867, Quebec was 
one province among four; it is now, through the in- 
troduction of new provinces, but one among seven. 
But the work of carving out new provinces has only 
begun. Its representation in the Dominion House of 
Commons was fixed permanently at sixty-five, the 
proportion of this number to the population of the 
province being taken as a basis from which all other 
provincial representation should be calculated at each 
decennial census. These sixty-five representatives 
sat at first in a House of 181 members; under the 
automatic rule of expansion they now form part of a 
House of 215 members. Of these sixty-five mem- 
bers seventeen are at the present time English- 
speaking, and may be taken as fairly representative of 
the English population of the province. The strictly 
French vote of Quebec in the Federal Parliament may 
therefore be placed at about forty-eight. 

Out of the whole population of the Dominion, which 
was 4,833,237 in 1891, 1,404,974 were French-speaking ; 
of these 1,186,346 were in the Province of Quebec. 
These proportions, it will be seen, are weighty, but 
not dominant. 

So much for the present. In forecasting the future 



VI 



Eastern Canada 129 



one or two main points must be kept in view. The 
first is that the French population of Canada is not 
reinforced from without. France, with her declining 
population, now sends very few emigrants abroad, and 
she sends them least of all to Quebec. In the whole 
province of Quebec there were found in 1891 only 
2,883 persons who were born in France, and this 
number must have represented the migration for an 
entire generation. 

On the other hand, the French Canadian has him- 
self become an emigrant from his native country. 
In an article in the Forum , Louis Frechette, the 
French Canadian writer, estimates the number of his 
compatriots in the United States at between eleven 
and twelve hundred thousand. This estimate appears 
to be much exaggerated, but the number is certainly 
very great. An American estimate places the numbers 
in the six New England States alone at something over 
300,000. 

One qualifying feature of this exodus to New 
England is, however, to be noted. Numbers of the 
people do not go to remain. The Commissioner for 
the census of 1891 pointed out to me at Ottawa the 
remarkable fact that in the returns Quebec was often 
given as the birthplace of the elder children of a 
large French family, the United States as the birth- 
place of a succeeding group, to be followed again by 
others born in Quebec. The migration, therefore, is 
in part temporary, and the present inclination of the 
habitant is to gravitate back to his native soil. 

K 



130 The Great Dominion chap. 

This exodus is almost exclusively confined to the 
poorer and less educated population of the province ; 
for the able, educated, and ambitious French Canadian 
the best field is still found at home among his own 
people and under the Canadian system, where he has 
a far better opportunity to win political, professional, 
or literary success. In the United States he could 
only succeed by using the English language and 
becoming entirely Americanized ; in Canada he can 
succeed even while remaining a Frenchman ; a moderate 
adaptation to English ideas opens freely to him all 
the avenues to power. 

But, whatever qualification we give to it, a migra- 
tion which has already advanced so far must profoundly 
affect the future of the French race in Canada, unless 
some change of industrial circumstances or of race 
feeling — and neither is impossible — should result in 
a refluent wave of movement on a corresponding scale. 
The tendency of the French Canadian both in Canada 
and the United States to drift into the cities and to 
become a factory operative, instead of the hardy and 
adventurous pioneer of Western civilization, such as 
he once was, is another element in the question ; it is 
almost as significant as the change which has made 
France cease to be a colonizing power in the true sense 
of the expression. Had the whole tide of migration 
from Quebec been directed to the newly opened West 
instead of to New England the results must have been 
very considerable. 

Again, it has commonly been supposed that the 



vi Eastern Canada 13 1 

natural increase amongst the French Canadians is far 
beyond that in the English provinces. Certainly the 
contrast between the large families commonly found 
among the devout, moral, and conservative French 
of Canada, and the strictly limited families which 
are the rule in France is striking enough, and 
furnishes a singular problem for the student of social 
or national evolution. 

There are apparently few things which give to the 
habitant of Quebec such unalloyed satisfaction as to 
see himself surrounded by a numerous offspring, what- 
ever the degree of comfort in which he may be able to 
maintain them. In this feeling he has, curiously 
enough, public support. 

Three or four years ago the government of the 
province, reverting to the policy of the French Kings 
in the early days of Canadian colonization, instituted 
a system of premiums on large families, by offering to 
give a grant of a hundred acres of land to all heads of 
families who had twelve or more children. This grant 
has already been made in nearly 2,000 cases, and appli- 
cations are said to be still flowing in. Families of 
twenty children are common; families of twenty-five 
or more are not unknown. But in spite of special 
facts like these the last Canadian census proved that 
the advantage in the natural rate of increase of 
Quebec over the other provinces was comparatively 
slight — in the case of Ontario it amounted to scarcely 
more than 1 per cent. 

A higher death-rate, possibly arising from lower 

K 2 



132 The Great Dominion chap. 

conditions of life, in part neutralizes the higher birth- 
rate. 

There is a still more important point to keep in 
mind. While Quebec is not reinforced from without, 
all the rest of Canada is being strengthened by a 
steady stream of people who, even when they come 
from the German, Scandinavian, and Latin countries 
of Europe, hasten to learn the English language, 
and within a generation or two become thoroughly 
Anglicised. In a previous chapter I have referred 
to a movement of pioneers from some districts of the 
United States towards the North-west of Canada. 
This migration alone, under the pressure of land 
hunger in the Western States, might easily grow to 
proportions which would add to the English speaking 
population of the North- West as much as is subtracted 
from that of Quebec by the exodus to New England. 
It is a significant circumstance that at the last census 
Ontario had 405,000 inhabitants returned as born in 
other countries and therefore representing the flow of 
immigration, while Quebec had only 82,000 or one- 
fifth as many of the same class. 

All these facts — and they are mentioned only as facts — 
go to show that the relative weight of French Canada 
in the Dominion must steadily and perhaps rapidly 
decline. But though Quebec is thus becoming a 
secondary factor in Canadian development it presents 
problems which, as I have said, are perplexing. 

To understand the situation, it must, in the first 
place, always be remembered that the Frenchman, so 



vi Eastern Canada 133 

far from being an alien in the country, is a Canadian of 
the Canadians. The love of the soil is burned into 
his very soul. He looks back to a long period in the 
early occupation of the country which the brilliant pen 
of Parkman has shown to present not merely the most 
picturesque page in the history of America, but one of 
the most picturesque in the history of the world. He 
underwent the greatest hardships in settling the 
country ; he suffered and fought and died to keep it 
under the French flag. Since he was abandoned by 
France he has fought with even greater intrepidity and 
has died as heroically to keep his country under the 
British flag. 

The many thousands of French Canadians who go to 
work in the mills and factories of New England the 
American looks upon as aliens — -just as he looks 
upon the Italian or the Polish Jew — almost as he 
looks upon the Chinaman. A limited naturalization, 
which has made the French Canadian vote count in 
elections, may suggest modification of this statement ; 
but it is still, in the main, true. In Canada, on the 
other hand, and, above all, in Quebec, the French 
Canadian is on his native heath. No sense or right of 
citizenship is stronger than his. His English fellow- 
subjects not only freely acknowledge this perfect equality 
of citizenship, but they even look upon him as a fellow- 
citizen who has special claims upon their consideration, 
in view of the anomalous position which he has so long 
held — that of a loyal citizen of an Empire to which 
he is not tied by either race or religion. 



134 'The Great Dominion chap. 



Nor can any just sense of irritation be connected 
with his British citizenship. It came as the result of a 
conflict honourable to both the parties engaged in it. 
It brought him a freedom of self-government he never 
knew before. It gave him a security for his religion 
which he could not have expected under the rule of 
France subsequent to the Revolution. It gave stabilit}^ 
to his institutions which would have been out of the 
question had he been connected with a country which 
has passed since 1759 through many revolutions. It 
has left him free for more than a century to pursue his 
avocations in peace, while France has been desolated by 
internal convulsions and external attacks. From the 
first, or at least as soon as the necessity for military 
rule had disappeared, he has received a consideration 
very unusual in the case of countries won by arms. He 
now enjoys in the fullest sense and without any quali- 
fication all the rights of British citizenship, and in 
Quebec additional privileges altogether peculiar, con- 
ceded in deference to his sensitiveness in matters of 
language and religion. 

All these circumstances have made a profound and, 
it may fairly be assumed, a permanent impression upon 
the mind of the great body of French Canadians. 
With all their most responsible and reflective men, 
loyalty to the British connection has long been a first 
tenet. Sir George Cartier described himself as an 
Englishman speaking French. Sir Etienne Tache 
emphasized the loyalty of his people by affirming that 
in any national conflict, it would be a French Canadian 



VI 



Eastern Canada 135 



who would fire the last shot in defence of the British flag 
in America. At Winnipeg, the late Archbishop Tache 
quoted to me his relative's words with the warmest 
approval and satisfaction. Throughout nearly the 
whole of the present century, the clergy of Quebec 
have uniformly looked upon British connection as the 
best guarantee of the secure position of themselves, 
their church, and their people. Their highest repre- 
sentatives have not hesitated to state this in formal 
ecclesiastical declarations. 

English Canadians have certainly met these in- 
dications of a common loyalty with goodwill. If they 
have had at times some difficulty in working harmon- 
iously with Englishmen speaking French, they are quite 
prepared, under favourable conditions, to go far with 
Frenchmen speaking English, or reasonably in sympathy 
with English ideas. Mr. Laurier has been for some 
years the leader of the Liberal Opposition in Parlia- 
ment. It would to-day be possible for him, in any 
change of Government, to become Prime Minister with 
the loyal following, of the Liberal party throughout the 
whole Dominion. But this is the first time in Canadian 
history that such a thing has been possible, and it is 
only now made possible by the fact that Mr. Laurier is 
English as well as French speaking, Liberal in the 
larger sense of the word, free from some of the most 
inveterate prejudices of his compatriots, and inspired 
by a patriotism which reaches far beyond Quebec. 

And this, perhaps, brings us to the point where the 
line of difficulty and dangerous friction may be most 



136 The Great Dominion chap. 

clearly discerned. Unfortunately, not all French 
Canadian leaders are responsible and moderate men. 
The Frenchman is a Canadian of the Canadians, but 
the Canada of to-day is not, as he sometimes seems to 
think, the Canada of Louis XV. Within the past few 
years, however, a persistent attempt has been made to 
narrow the French Canadian's patriotism to Quebec ; to 
fill him with the idea that it is possible to create on 
the banks of the St. Lawrence something which, as 
pictured to him, is practically a separate French 
nationality in Canada ; a nationality, too, which 
belongs to a past century rather than to the present. 

The late Mr. Mercier was responsible for much of the 
marked development of this feeling which took place 
during the period of his political ascendency in Quebec. 
Mr. Mercier's power crumbled to pieces long before his 
death, but the ideas which he planted are not so easily 
got rid of, and, indeed, already had a favourable soil in 
which to grow. There are those who still affirm that 
he represented French Canadian aspirations more 
completely than any other man whom Quebec has 
produced. One of the most prominent of their public 
men once said to me that, as a matter of fact, a 
majority of French Canadians look forward to an ex- 
clusiveness on the American continent as complete 
both in race and religion as was ever that of the 
Hebrews. No one familiar with Quebec will doubt 
that the statement has in it much truth. My informant 
was not himself in sympathy with this feeling, and he 
referred to it with regret. His own influence has been 



VI 



Eastern Canada 137 



used to bring his people more freely into the general 
tide of Anglo-Saxon movement on the continent. But 
he preaches to comparatively deaf ears. Amalgam- 
ation was never, perhaps, to be expected. It makes as 
little progress among the scattered Acadians of the 
maritime provinces as in the concentrated population 
of the province of Quebec ; as little in the United 
States as in Canada. Does the obstacle lie in race, 
language, or religion ? The strong objection of the 
Roman Catholic Church to mixed marriages does not 
altogether account for it, since amalgamation with 
Irish Roman Catholics, who are numerous in Montreal, 
is almost as uncommon as with the English or Scottish 
Protestants. It is, therefore, probably in large part a 
matter of race, and, in a less degree, of language, and 
must be accepted as a permanent condition. 

But there may be a broad national sympathy, unity 
of public effort and aim, a reasonable yielding to the 
will of the majority, and a delicate respect for the con- 
stitutional rights of others without amalgamation, as 
we see from the example, say, of Switzerland, where 
cantons which differ in race, religion, and language act 
with the most patriotic unanimity. Should Quebec 
push provincial rights to the utmost in her own case, 
and yet use all her political influence to interfere with 
the right of majorities in the other provinces to deal 
freely, within the limits of the Constitution, even with 
educational questions, she will awaken a profound dis- 
trust in the English provinces. If she pursue a policy 
of studied race isolation she will become more and 



138 The Great Dominion chap. 

more fossilized amid all the progress and activities of a 
strenuous continent, and will destroy her own just 
weight in the councils of the Dominion. If any 
impression is created that French Canadians sym- 
pathize with a policy of national disintegration in any 
form, they will find themselves face to face with a wall 
of adamant in the consolidating national purposes of 
the rest of the Dominion. 

These are the warnings which all prudent and 
impartial thinkers in the Dominion express openly or 
have in their minds when they consider the position of 
the French Canadian. They are warnings which are 
needed, though they are meant more for a few of the 
leaders, political and ecclesiastical, than for the body of 
the people. The habitans are a simple and docile 
people, far from aggressive or discontented if left to 
themselves, but with a Parisian facility for being 
stirred to sudden and what seems to colder-blooded 
men unreasoning effervescence. They are what their 
teachers and leaders make them to a degree almost 
beyond parallel. It is upon the moderation and self- 
restraint of these leaders, lay and clerical, more than 
upon anything else, that freedom from serious friction 
in the government of the Dominion must depend. 

These leaders must say, too, whether French Canada 
is to be narrow, bigoted, and isolated, or liberal, progres- 
sive, and with a legitimate influence constantly increas- 
ing. French dominance on the American continent 
received its death-blow a century and a half ago from a 
policy which sought to make Canada and Louisiana a 



vi Eastern Canada 



139 



close preserve for a single set of ideas and a single type 
of Frenchman ; a like policy pursued now would mean 
in the long-run the certain weakening of French in- 
fluence in the Dominion. 

Outside the province of Quebec the French question 
has no very important bearings. Of 1,404,974 French- 
speaking people in Canada, all but 218,628 are in 
Quebec. Those in Manitoba and the North- West only 
number about 13,000, and can now never form more 
than a very small fraction of the increasing population. 
The overflow from Quebec into the counties of Ontario 
which lie along the Ottawa gave a population in 1891 
of 101,123. 

One fact about this overflow, however, seems worthy 
of remark. It was well known that during the ten years 
preceding the census of 1891 a good deal of land had 
been taken up in the border counties of Ontario by 
French Canadians. Yet when the decennial census 
appeared it was found, to the surprise of everybody, 
that the French-speaking population of Ontario showed 
numbers actually a little less than those of 1881. 
When the Commissioner for the census was reproached 
by French members of Parliament for inaccuracy in 
this particular, he pointed out that the census only 
asked for a return of language, not of race descent. 
The conclusion seemed irresistible that a portion of 
the French settlers in these border districts had pre- 
ferred to return themselves as English-speaking rather 
than French-speaking. The fact is suggestive. Doubt- 
less the French language will have to struggle for its 



140 The Great Dominion chap. 

existence on a continent where all other races tend at once 
to become Anglicized in tongue. That it has withstood 
the effects of its environment so successfully for a full 
century indicates a singular and, in its way, admirable 
tenacity of purpose and habit in the French people. 
Perhaps it is more due to isolation than to any set 
purpose. Now that the habitant goes abroad from the 
province more freely, indications are not wanting that 
even in language he cannot altogether resist the 
influence of his surroundings. The operative in the 
mills of New England, and the lumberman in the 
woods of Michigan, when he returns to Quebec has had 
his native patois interlarded with numerous expressions 
which are certainly not French, though but doubtfully 
English. This would be still more true were it not for 
a gregarious habit which, combined with natural race 
preference, makes him, when abroad, associate almost 
entirely with his compatriots. To New England the 
curd follows the people and gathers them into congre- 
gations. Churches are built for worship, and convents 
for education ; in most of the States French Roman 
Catholic dioceses have been established. The French 
shopkeeper comes to supply the wants of the French 
artisan; local French newspapers give him his news. 
Thus the habitant has almost as little use for English 
in a New England town as in Quebec itself. Still his 
isolation is not quite complete. 

When I landed in Quebec I found that the French 
papers, both of the ancient capital and of Montreal, were 
vigorously discussing how far importations of English 



VI 



Eastern Canada 141 



words were affecting the purity of the French tongue as 
spoken throughout the province. There seemed a con- 
sensus of opinion that nothing but a vigorous resistance 
would give security to the French language. The limits 
to which that resistance should be pressed bring up a 
nice question for the French Canadian. No one can 
doubt for a moment that the man on the American 
continent who does not know the English language is 
handicapped in the race for success of any kind. If 
the French Canadian chooses to isolate himself in this 
respect, he does it at his own expense ; he loses oppor- 
tunity and influence. It is a heavy price to pay for the 
maintenance of a sentiment. He can see for himself 
that his most successful men are those who have 
mastered the prevailing tongue of the continent. 

" Why," one asks, " in the face of facts so manifest, 
does he not, like the great German communities of the 
Western States, the Icelanders of the North-West, the 
people of all races who come to America, hasten to 
learn the language which they all find is the readiest 
key to the opportunities of the continent ? Why do 
not the clergy and public men of Quebec, who would 
gladly see their people prosper and grow in power and 
influence, insist that English shall be well and carefully 
taught in every school ? " 

There can be but one answer. Devotion to the 
French tongue has become associated in the minds of 
the clergy with devotion to religion. The lictbitant has 
had this lesson inculcated till it has become well nigh 
an instinct in his nature, and to-day we find him con* 



142 The Great Dominion chap. 

trolled by a feeling precisely opposite to that which 
influences every other race which has settled in 
America. He prefers, on the whole, not to learn 
English. 

To the Anglo-Saxon the theory that religion needs 
support of this kind seems absurd ; the French pastor, 
whose personal hold might be weakened by the change, 
gauges his people by a different standard. 

Though a French speech may still frequently be 
heard in the Dominion Parliament, French members 
who aspire to really influence the house and country 
almost invariably speak in English, and it is a note- 
worthy fact that the most conspicuous orators of Parlia- 
ment have been English-speaking Frenchmen. Mr. 
Laurier and Mr. Chapleau are masters of polished 
English speech, and few men secure a better hearing 
from English audiences. In perfect enunciation and 
clearness of English diction Sir Adolphe Caron might- 
give lessons to the majority of his English fellow- 
members. 

While the industrial position of the habitant would 
be greatly improved by a knowledge of English, as is 
the political position of his leaders, no one would wish 
to see him give up entirely the tongue which has for 
him such a wealth of association. Rather is it to be 
regretted that more of the people of the English pro- 
vinces do not make themselves familiar with French. 
Such a knowledge, especially among public men, would 
create a very real bond of sympathy which does not 
now exist. 



VI 



Eastern Canada 143 



Occasionally one hears regrets expressed in Canada 
that the French language was ever given any official 
status in the Federal Parliament. The objections to its 
employment are manifest, but superficial. The argu- 
ment on which its permissive use rests is funda- 
mental. 

Sir Henry de Villiers, when pointing out, during the 
Colonial Conference, to a French Canadian audience at 
Quebec, that he could not speak French because the 
language of his French ancestors had been crushed out 
under the Dutch rule at the Cape, added that a man or 
a people " can be all the more loyal when they are able 
to express their loyalty in their own language." Such a 
remark as this embodies the pith of the whole matter. 

It is the glory of British government in Canada that 
it has cheerfully accepted the inconveniences arising 
from the use of mixed languages that it may give un- 
mixed liberty to the French people of Quebec. 

Quebec gives to Canada an industrious, patient, and 
moral body of peasants, fishermen, and operatives in 
its lower classes ; in its upper classes brilliant speakers 
and writers, jurists of distinguished ability, and a clergy 
which in its superior ranks has weight and administra- 
tive capacity. But the men who have individual weight 
and the qualities which win social distinction are singu- 
larly few in number compared with the whole population. 
This may be traced in part to the fact that after 1759 the 
seigneurs and noblesse, with their traditions of culture and 
education, forsook Quebec and returned to France ; it is 
probably still more due to the limitations placed on indi- 



144 The Great Dominion chap. 

vidual development by a rigid ecclesiastical system. One 
cannot but think that with more liberal views of educa- 
tion, a policy which encouraged free intercourse with the 
other provinces, a faith in their religion too robust 
to fear contact with the outside world, the mass of 
the people would show a more progressive spirit ; the 
movement from the bottom to the top of the social 
scale would be as active as in the English provinces, 
and the whole moral weight of the community would 
be increased. 

Not that Quebec has too much influence in the 
Dominion, but that she has too little of the weight 
which comes from culture, widespread intelligence, and 
progressive energy is, or ought to be, the anxiety of 
English Canadians. That French taste, courtesy, polish, 
social influence, should make the same impression in 
America that it has in Europe might well be a dream 
and inspiration for the French Canadian. 

One has no hesitation in discussing frankly this 
question of race inertia in Quebec. The most clear- 
sighted men of the province admit and deplore it. 

Doubtless it has been due in part to unavoidable 
circumstances. Cut off from easy contact with the 
higher standards of France, and not yet in sympathy 
Avith those of British people, the difficulty of maintain- 
ing social and intellectual activity over a thinly settled 
country during a large part of this century can easily 
be understood. But a supreme effort should be made 
to change these conditions. Something like an attitude 
of helplessness in face of the immobility of the habit- 



VI 



Eastern Canada 145 



ant seemed to me to prevail among able and earnest 
Frenchmen who were thinking much on the question. 

A most intelligent priest spoke to me of one form which 
this immobility took. " A young man in our French 
villages," he said, " has little encouragement to work his 
way up to that social distinction of which you speak. 
If he begins to acquire the culture and adopt the habits 
of refined society, there is a disposition to look upon 
him askance, as one who is willing to forsake his own 
people and their ways for alien forms of life and 
thought." 

Such a feeling as this, if correctly stated, must be a 
great barrier to progress. It does not represent the 
aspiring spirit of the France from which the habitant 
sprang, nor that of the Britain with which he is now 
associated. 

Whether the future of the French Canadian is to be 
a growing or diminishing one seems to me to be hang- 
ing just now more than ever before in doubtful balance, 
and he himself holds the scales, or, to be more precise, 
a few of his leaders do so. There are many signs of 
encouragement, and others of an opposite kind. " If 
you want to find loyalty, come to Quebec," I have 
heard said over and over again by French Canadians, 
representative men of different classes and of unques- 
tioned sincerity. I am convinced that the majority 
of the people of Quebec could honestly re-echo the 
sentiment. But another note is sometimes heard in 
the press and on the platform, and it is not easy to 
measure the real force behind it. One thing may be 

L 



146 The Great Dominion chap. 

said definitely. If the ideas and policy which Mr. 
Mercier represented have much vogue or prevail, there 
are troublous times ahead. The larger hope of Quebec 
lies in the unconditional acceptance of her Canadian 
destiny. In any attempt to pursue an individual 
course without reference to the sentiment of the whole 
Dominion the French Canadian will make shipwreck 
of his fortunes. 

If a gospel of moderation and liberality must be 
preached to some classes of French Canadians, one 
of patience and generous consideration must equally 
be preached to certain sections of their English- 
speaking fellow-citizens. The average Frenchman of 
Canada can no more be calm than the Frenchman 
of France: under excitement he is apt to lose his 
head, and to say far more than he means. The stolid 
Saxon rarely says as much as he means, and makes 
little allowance for a contrary temperament. This 
latter he must learn to do. There is no sufficient 
reason why the Orangeman of Ontario should treat 
so seriously as he does every sign of temporary 
effervescence in Quebec. Perhaps he too has a strain 
of Celtic blood. If so, then the mass of reasonable 
Canadian opinion must restrain the excesses of both 
alike. The English provinces can afford to be calm 
under all conditions. They have only to be studiously 
just, to employ all fair means for diminishing friction, 
and then rest upon their natural weight of influence. 
Their real political danger lies not in Quebec and 
the Frenchman, but in the recklessness of party 



VI 



Eastern Canada 147 



conflict, which has more than once tempted their poli- 
ticians to sacrifice principle in order to win the French 
vote. The French vote, on the other hand, has seemed 
at times open to be won rather by the particular con- 
cession it had in view than by a reasoned and honest 
policy. 

Mutual respect between the races cannot spring 
from such relations. Yet for mutual respect there is 
abundant ground. The Frenchman may well reflect 
how just and considerate, on the whole, has been the 
dominant Briton. The Englishman should equally 
think how loyal, on the whole, has been the French 
Canadian under peculiar circumstances. If there 
cannot be in Canada the same mingling of blood 
which followed the Norman Conquest of England, and 
made the characteristics of both races the common 
heritage of all their descendants in England to-day, 
there can at least be hearty recognition of the better 
qualities in each, mutual toleration of constitutional 
differences, common and sympathetic effort for the 
general good. 

The Acadians of the Maritime provinces number 
about 100,000. Many circumstances have conspired 
to make this interesting people far from homogeneous 
with the habitans of Quebec, and more in touch with 
the English among whom they live. Not long since, 
in one of the maritime provinces, an Acadian French- 
man was for the first time raised to a seat on the 
bench of the Supreme Court. In political life he had 
filled with great credit important administrative posts, 

L 2 



148 The Great Dominion chap. 

and had won a high reputation among English as well 
as French constituents for integrity of character, 
honesty of purpose, and painstaking care in the 
management of public affairs. The Acadians are now 
an extremely contented people — almost too contented, 
some think, with their comparatively humble lot ; and 
one of the greatest merits of the new judge is the 
energy with which he has always pointed out to his com- 
patriots that under the constitution of the country in 
which they live all positions are freely open to them, 
provided they take the trouble to place themselves on 
an intellectual equality with their English fellow- 
citizens and competitors. His example might with 
advantage be followed throughout French Canada. 

Under a reckless and corrupt system of expenditure 
the local finances of Quebec, during Mr. Mercier's 
regime, became greatly embarrassed, but they are now 
carefully managed, and are slowly gaining strength, 
while, as a member of the confederation, the province 
enjoys its full share in the high financial position 
achieved by the Dominion at large. 

Not much can be said about the opportunities 
offered by Quebec to emigrants from the United 
Kingdom. It should be pointed out that in all the 
old provinces of the Dominion the ungranted and 
unsettled crown lands are under the control, not of 
the Dominion Parliament, as in the North- West, but 
of the Provincial Legislatures, the policy of which is 
directed by local considerations. Quebec has still 
large unoccupied areas, but the prevailing inclination 



vi Eastern Canada 149 

seems to be to fill them with a native French-speaking 
population rather than from outside. Of late years a 
very vigorous effort has been made by a colonization and 
repatriation society, working under clerical supervision, 
but with the aid of the provincial government, to 
colonize new districts with young men taken from 
the older settlements, or others drawn back to the 
soil from the factories of the United States. The 
period of depression through which the latter country 
lately passed has greatly favoured this movement, 
and the number of those returning to take up home- 
steads in new districts has been large. 

South of the St. Lawrence, in what are known as the 
Eastern townships, a very flourishing English popula- 
tion has long been established in a good agricultural 
country. Sherbrooke is the principal town of this 
portion of the province, and is a centre of manufactur- 
ing as well as agricultural industry. Mines of asbestos 
give employment to a large body of workmen. There 
are also marble quarries and deposits of copper. A 
college and a public school on the English model near 
by at Lennoxville give exceptional opportunities for 
education. 

This is one of the districts to which the attention 
of settlers with some capital, wishing to obtain partly 
improved farms, within reach of English and American, 
as well as Canadian markets, can be with some con- 
fidence directed. 

In fisheries and timber the resources of the province 
are very great, and the habitant is singularly expert 



150 The Great Dominion chap. 

both as fisherman and lumberman. He is, however, a 
bad farmer — the worst in Canada — partly, perhaps, 
because he tries to combine farming with fishing and 
lumbering, but chiefly from ignorance. In travelling 
through the purely French portions of the province, 
one is everywhere struck by the manifest exhaustion of 
the soil from lack of intelligent cultivation, both in the 
past and at present ; by the inferiority of the stock to 
that in the other provinces; and by the apparent 
content of the people with primitive and long obsolete 
methods and implements of agriculture. Steps are 
now being taken by the Church as well as by the 
civil authorities to remedy this state of things. The 
bishops of the Koman Catholic Church have issued a 
pastoral letter calling the special attention of their 
flocks to the importance of improved methods of farm- 
ing. I was told of cur4s among the Acadian French 
who had taken upon themselves the management of 
co-operative dairy works in their parishes, and who 
seized the opportunity offered by the Sunday sermon 
to address a homily on agriculture to their parishioners. 
The success of their efforts would do more than almost 
anything else to raise the standard of comfort among 
the people. For a race like the French Canadians, 
with their willingness to listen to clerical direction, 
it is a matter of the utmost importance that their 
clergy are awake to considerations of this kind. A most 
intelligent priest of a large parish on the Ottawa, with 
whom I discussed the question in crossing the Atlantic, 
spoke with enthusiasm of the advantage which his 



VI 



Eastern Canada 151 



parishioners had derived from having settled near them 
a colony of careful and successful Scottish farmers, 
whose methods were a constant object lesson to the 
neighbourhood. A Trappist brotherhood near Oka, on 
the Ottawa, devotes itself to agriculture, with a view to 
teaching improved systems to the people. It receives 
the sons of farmers for instruction, and is said, by the 
mere force of example, to have raised the whole standard 
of farming in its vicinity. The Quebec Government 
has sent agents to study Danish methods of dairying, 
and the province is now making rapid progress in the 
production of cheese. 

Montreal is the greatest city of Quebec and of the 
Dominion. If the St. Lawrence were not frozen in 
winter, it would be the commercial rival of New York, 
and probably one of the greatest cities of the world. 
Even as it is Montreal's future must be very great, 
standing as the city does at the meeting-place of ocean 
navigation and of an astonishing inland water system, 
at a point where immense combinations of railways 
tend more and more to focus themselves. The Canadian 
Pacific, controlling about nine thousand miles of rail- 
way in the United States and Canada, the Grand 
Trunk, controlling four or five thousand more, both 
have their chief offices and termini here. So have the 
great inland and ocean navigation companies. The 
city is in close railway connexion with St. John and 
Halifax, Portland, Boston, and New York, all of which 
it uses as convenience determines for winter ports. 
Every considerable expansion of Canada's exporting 



152 The Great Dominion chap. 



and importing capacity must mean extending business 
for Montreal. The completion of the canal system 
seems likely to bring it a share of the export business 
of the Western States as well. It is the chief point for 
Canadian wheat, timber, cattle, pork, cheese, butter, 
and fruit export ; it is the greatest wholesale distribut- 
ing centre for manufactured goods. Not very far from 
one half of the whole import and export trade of the 
Dominion passes through Montreal. The largest busi- 
ness firms of the Dominion, the most powerful banking 
houses, the greatest organizers of industry, of the 
carrying trade, of railway construction, are here. Among 
the monetary institutions of the world, very few stand 
higher than the Bank of Montreal. The finer streets 
of the city indicate clearly that it is the home of 
merchant princes, and the centre of much realized 
wealth. A vast amount of business capacity, chiefly 
imported from Scotland and England, has gone to 
build up Montreal, deepen its harbour, open the way 
to the sea, establish steamship lines, create industries, 
and organize railway connexion with all parts of the 
continent. 

Montreal is also the meeting-place of the two 
nationalities of Eastern Canada. The two sides of 
the city are in striking contrast, yet each is the 
industrial complement of the other; one the home of 
capital and business energy, the other of a crowded 
population distinguished by patient and, on the whole, 
contented industry. 

English Montreal complains that, as compared with 



VI 



Eastern Canada 153 



Toronto, it is handicapped by French inertia, and that 
it has to pay heavy penalties in the shape of taxation 
for being connected with a province and a munici- 
pality where vast accumulations of Church property 
are free from civic burdens, where the French vote 
prevails, and French politicians are sometimes extrava- 
gant at the expense of their richer neighbours. It 
freely utilizes the French voter, however, as a work- 
man, and grows wealthy in the process. An excellent 
workman he is too — not over-strenuous, but intelligent. 
" A born carpenter " was the phrase by which a large 
employer of labour described him. Industry in Mon- 
treal has enjoyed a singular immunity from disastrous 
strikes, and the fact should be remembered to the 
credit of the artisan class. An organised effort to 
improve municipal government gives promise of good 
results. 

Montreal refines sugar, spins cotton, and manufac- 
tures tobacco on a large scale. In these and minor 
industries, as well as in its great export and import 
trade, its railway and steamboat lines, its financial 
institutions, and, above all, its geographical position, 
the city has the foundations of a prosperity more solid 
and enduring, in the opinion of good judges, than that 
of any city of its size on the American continent. 

The prosperity of Montreal has to some extent been 
secured at the expense of the ancient capital, Quebec, 
where shipping has decreased since the deepening of 
the St. Lawrence, where the timber trade has fallen 



154 The Great Dominion chap. 

off, and from which the vigorous English business 
element seems to have in part withdrawn. Of this 
last point a proof appears to be given in the fact 
that English members are now but rarely elected to 
the municipal council. With an abundance of cheap 
labour, for its French population numbers nearly 60,000, 
and a situation well adapted for commerce, it is a little 
difficult to see why the city does not become more of 
an industrial centre than it is. It manufactures boots 
and shoes, but not even these to an extent commen- 
surate with its available working population, which 
ought to make it the Lowell or Birmingham of 
Canada. 

The bridging of the St. Lawrence near the city, 
which has been contemplated and is believed to be 
quite practicable to modern engineering, has been 
thought of as a means to renew the commercial im- 
portance of the place. It is claimed, too, that as the 
export of wheat from the St. Lawrence increases, 
through the development of the North- West and the 
completion of the canal system, the climatic advan- 
tages offered by Quebec as a point of storage, and in 
other ways as a point of shipment, may revive its 
fortunes. 

Much more is to be hoped for, I think, from the in- 
troduction of capital to give employment to the cheap 
labour of the place. 

But no industrial change can take away from the 
historic interest of a spot which was for so long one 



VI 



Eastern Canada 155 



of the pivots of the world's history, or from the pictur- 
esque grandeur of the massive fortress as it towers 
over the ancient city. More and more the St. Lawrence 
becomes one of the greatest routes of American and 
Canadian tourist travel, and Quebec is the central 
feature of enduring interest. A splendid hotel has 
lately been completed on the terrace beneath the 
Citadel, to meet this increasing volume of travel. From 
its windows the traveller looks out upon one of the 
noblest prospects that his eye is ever likely to meet — 
the broad St. Lawrence, stretching away in gleaming 
brightness between the blue hills which rise on either 
side ; the Island of Orleans, where Wolfe's army was 
encamped through many weary weeks of waiting ; the 
cliffs of Levis opposite, from which his batteries rained 
shot upon the Citadel ; the Beauport shore, where the 
bulk of the French army lay watching his movements ; 
the Citadel itself, which was the prize in this great 
game of war. 

Outside the walls is the simple and noble monument 
erected by England on the spot where her hero fell. 
Inside the walls is another on which French and 
British Canadians have united to link together the 
memory of Montcalm and Wolfe. 

In its wealth of picturesque association Quebec is 
by far the most interesting city on the American 
continent. So long as the memory of great deeds 
moves the human heart, it will continue to be a place 
of pilgrimage. 



156 The Great Dominion chap, vi 

But as one studies the French Canadian province he 
becomes convinced that what it most needs is some 
great awakening of the people to the splendid 
opportunities which lie before them if they would 
but throw themselves more heartily into the tide of 
Canadian progress. 



Ccf lJ1 \ 



c rci 



ol 



J&, 




Zarrjfoti.StaivfoTdi. Qeoo'- JBstal* 



CHAPTER VII 

BRITISH COLUMBIA 

To learn the price Canada was ready to pay for 
confederation and for a pathway from ocean to ocean, 
the traveller must climb by rail up from the prairies at 
Calgary through the gorges of the Rocky Mountains to 
the summit of the Kicking Horse Pass, and then sweep 
down through the denies and valle}^s of the opposite 
slope, across the Selkirk and Coast ranges, and past 
the canons of the Fraser and Thompson Rivers, till he 
has reached the Pacific. He must study the line of 
railway in winter, when, as he looks up, at a hundred 
points avalanches of snow are seen ready to descend 
upon it from lofty peaks ; he must visit it in spring, 
when, looking down, he sees the tremendous torrents 
that roar beneath swollen from the melting snows ; he 
must observe with what elaborate care these dangers 
have been successfully overcome ; he must feel the 
sensation of gliding by day and night over bridges 
which stretch like immense slender spiders far over the 
tops of lofty pines ; he must ride under miles of sheds 
built with strength sufficient to resist the avalanche 



158 The Great Dominion chap. 

rush of snow; he must look down almost from the 
carriage windows into the depths of the Albert canon ; 
he must be whirled, ascending and descending, around 
the curves of the Great Loop ; he must look out for 
two or three days continuously on the marvellous 
succession of mountain peak and range and gorge and 
embattled cliff guarding the long narrow valleys, all of 
which go to make up the impressive and magnificent 
scenery of the greater part of British Columbia. When 
he has wondered at the courage of the engineers who 
faced such a task of railway construction, and the 
energy of the contractors who transported the material 
and fed the armies of labourers by whom the work was 
done, and when he has studied the organized watchful- 
ness which has kept this line day and night for several 
years practically free from danger or serious obstruc- 
tion, he has yet other even more striking conditions 
connected with its construction to consider. 

Ontario, the base from which the task was approached 
on the side of Eastern Canada, is 1,600 miles away. 
The first 400 miles of road round the north side of Lake 
Superior had to be cut through a wilderness of rough 
granitic country, uninhabited, and well-nigh unin- 
habitable, save for the mining populations, which 
draw supplies from outside. Then followed 1,200 
miles of prairie, all of which was also uninhabited, or 
very thinly inhabited, until the railway opened the way 
for settlers. All this had to be traversed before the 
foot of the mountains was reached, where the really 
serious work began. And for what purpose was this 



VII 



British Columbia 159 



mighty barrier of the Rockies and Selkirks, 600 miles 
wide, to be crossed ? 

Not to unite two great communities striving for 
closer intercourse, as was the case when the 40,000,000 
people of the Eastern and Western States, already 
advanced far beyond the Mississippi, made the first 
American line across a narrower range of mountains 
to get in touch with San Francisco and the large 
population of the Pacific States, which was also pressing 
up to the base of the Rockies. In Eastern Canada 
there were only 4,000,000 people ; in British Columbia 
there were less than 50,000 white people — the popula- 
tion of a small English manufacturing town — and few 
of these on the mainland, when the railroad was under- 
taken. It was to complete and round off a national 
conception; to prepare the way for commercial and 
political advantages as yet far remote, and by many 
deemed imaginary, that the work was faced. British 
Columbia, insignificant in population, was significant 
enough in position and in some of its resources. It 
fronted on the Pacific ; it had splendid harbours and 
abundant coal ; it supplied a new base of sea power 
and commercial influence ; it suggested a new and short 
pathway to the Orient and Australasia. The statesmen 
at Ottawa who in 1867 began to look over the Rockies 
to continents beyond the Pacific were not wanting 
in imagination; many claimed that their imagination 
outran their reason ; but in the rapid course of events 
their dreams have already been more than justified. 

They were, perhaps, building even better than they 



160 The Gi'eat Dominion chap. 

knew. When Japanese and Australian mail and trade 
routes are already accomplished facts, when Pacific cable 
schemes are being discussed, and when the docks and 
fortifications of Esquimalt are being completed jointly 
by Britain and Canada, we can see clearly that they 
were supplying the missing joints and fastening the 
rivets of empire. While they were doing this they were 
also giving political consolidation to the older provinces 
of Canada. Common aspirations and a great common 
task, with the stirring of enthusiasm which followed on 
the sudden widening of the Canadian horizon, did 
more than anything else to draw those provinces out 
of their own narrow circles and give them the sense 
of a larger citizenship. 

So, though British Columbia made no great addition 
to the population of Canada, its absorption into the 
Dominion some years after confederation, and the 
pledge of a transcontinental railway which was the 
condition of that absorption, marked a great turning- 
point in Canadian history. It also added new and 
interesting features to the already manifold conditions 
of Canadian life. 

It gave the Dominion a new climate, or, one might 
rather say, a variety of new climates, for between the 
summit of the Rockies and the shore of the Pacific 
there are gradations of temperature and climatic effect 
for both summer and winter as marked as between 
Norway and northern Italy. It gave a Pacific sea- 
board many hundreds of miles in length, as rich in 
the wealth of the ocean as that of the Atlantic, and 



VII 



British Columbia 161 



wonderfully picturesque in its mingling of gulf, inlet, 
sound, and fiord. It opened up new and diversified 
fields for enterprise. 

I have shown how much the problems of the North- 
West differ from those in Eastern Canada; those of 
British Columbia have an individuality quite as marked, 
and distinct from both of the others. This might be 
inferred from the nature of the country. British 
Columbians are somewhat inclined to object to the 
phrase " a sea of mountains " by which their province 
has been described, probably thinking it likely to deter 
those in search of new homes. Yet the phrase ex- 
presses accurately the chief impression left upon the 
mind of a visitor, and it furnishes the best starting- 
point from which to discuss the capabilities and 
limitations of the province. 

British Columbia is not, and can never be in any 
large way, an agricultural country. The people will 
have reason to congratulate themselves when the 
production of food fully matches the consumption. 
This is not the case now, though it ought to become 
so in respect of many products within a few years. 
On the coast and islands, along the streams and in 
mountain valleys, there are considerable patches of 
good alluvial soil. A moist and warm climate makes 
it most productive. There are other areas less fertile, 
but well fitted for pasturage. In many cases they 
require irrigation, but for this the numerous unfailing 
mountain streams give abundant opportunity. North- 
ward, as the mountains sink down towards the Peace 

M 



1 62 The Great Dominion chap. 

River, there is said to be a wide extent of pastoral 
land, but this is still inaccessible, and ranching is now 
confined to more southern valleys. 

Here is obviously a new set of conditions. In 
writing of the North- West I described it as especially 
a country for the poor man ; one might have added, a 
country which gave even the unskilled labourer a 
chance. Something very nearly the opposite of this 
must be said of British Columbia. No province of 
Canada so little admits of indiscriminate immigration. 
The good farming land is limited in quantity, and, 
compared with that in other provinces, expensive. 
The vast deep-sea fisheries of the coast, on account of 
their distance from markets, can only be developed by 
degrees, or else by some great organization of collecting 
and distributing agencies involving the use of much 
capital. The plans for such an organization have been 
devised and submitted to the Legislature, in connexion 
with a scheme for settling Scotch fishermen along the 
coast, but the practicability of the scheme has yet 
to be established. The salmon fisheries and tinning 
establishments of the rivers require comparatively little 
labour, and even then employment is intermittent. 
Mines can only be worked with capital, and capital 
which does not demand a very quick return. The 
same is true of timber industries, and in this case, even 
if abundant capital were forthcoming, the difficulty 
of access to adequate markets hinders the full and 
rapid development of enterprise in dealing with a 
bulky material of commerce. In short, the capacity of 



vii British Columbia 163 

British Columbia to receive immigrants is strictly 
dependent upon the previous influx of capital, which, 
courageously and yet intelligently applied to the de- 
velopment of the resources of the country, will gradu- 
ally draw in its train the skilled and general labour 
required for its operations. Labourers should not go 
to the province on the mere chance of finding employ- 
ment, as they may without excessive risk go to some 
parts of Canada. If this is clearly understood, much 
disappointment will be avoided. But for men with 
capital, energy, and common-sense in business: men 
not afraid to risk something in the hope of large gains : 
men who can afford to wait, study the country, and 
watch for opportunities, the openings are varied and 
most promising. 

In the depths of these great mountain ranges are 
vast stores of mineral wealth. The gold mines of the 
Fraser and Carriboo districts, the silver and copper 
mines of the Kootenay, the coal of Canmore, Anthracite, 
and the Crow's Nest, are only suggestions, but striking 
ones, of what lies behind. Fifty million dollars' worth 
of gold was taken in a few years after the first dis- 
covery from the rich Fraser and Carriboo alluvial 
deposits. The almost insuperable obstacles to the 
transport of heavy machinery to these districts are 
being gradually overcome, so that hydraulic operations 
and quartz-crushing are now being substituted for the 
old placer mining. Geological opinion points to places 
close at hand as the sources of the alluvial gold, and 
there are known to be large areas of auriferous gravels. 

M 2 



164 The Great Dominion chap. 



The first returns from two properties near Quesnelle 
Forks, in the Carriboo district, where hydraulic 
machinery has for the first time been applied, are most 
satisfactory, and probably mark the beginning of a new 
era in British Columbian gold mining. 

The richness of the silver deposits of the Kootenay 
districts has been fully established by the discoveries 
of the last two years. Making due allowance for the 
usual exaggerations of prospectors and company pro- 
moters, it seems clear that the district will ultimately 
prove to be one of the most important areas of silver 
production on the continent. Still its development 
will probably be for some time slow. The present 
difficulty of access, the heavy import duty on lead and 
on silver ores entering the United States, which 
furnish the nearest smelting furnaces, and the de- 
preciation of silver during the past two years have all 
contributed to delay operations. So has the exagger- 
ated price at which silver claims are held by men or 
small companies not able to work them. The Canadian 
Pacific Railway appears to be feeling its way past Fort 
M'Leod towards the Crow's Nest Pass as a means of 
access to the Kootenay country. Great deposits of 
coal are also found in this pass, some of which make 
good coke, so that the means of transportation and 
the material for smelting may soon be within easy 
reach. The New American Tariff also provides for a 
lowering of the duties on silver ores, so that on the 
whole the prospects of the district are encouraging. 

American much more than British capital is at 



vii British Columbia 165 

present seizing the opportunities offered by the 
Kootenay silver deposits. The truth is that much 
experience in Nevada and Montana has made the 
American an expert, beyond all others, in silver, and in 
the methods of dealing with it. Besides, he goes to 
new fields of enterprise not merely to invest his money, 
but to look personally after his investments, as the 
British capitalist seldom does. 

One peculiarity of the industry should be mentioned. 
Veins of silver ore are singularly uncertain and variable. 
I found an agreement of opinion that they can be most 
successfully dealt with by large companies taking up 
numbers of claims, and so able to balance successes 
and disappointments over considerable areas. This 
is the prevailing American system, and it should be 
adopted by British capitalists if they seek a footing 
here. 

The resources of the mountainous interior are sup- 
plemented by those of the coast. The seal fisheries, in 
spite of restrictions, are still of considerable value. 
More than 70,000 skins were taken in 1893. The 
abundance of fish in the rivers and in the coast waters 
is probably without parallel in the world. The export 
of tinned salmon alone amounts annually to nearly 
three million dollars. Of the whole output, the 
markets of the United Kingdom absorb about five 
sixths ; the rest goes to Eastern Canada and Australia. 
The Fraser River is the centre of the salmon-packing 
industry, and this stream also abounds in sturgeon, 
which have lately become an article of commerce. 



1 66 The Great Dominion 



CHAP. 



Halibut and black cod are found in the greatest 
abundance off the Island of Vancouver, but the 
development of a large fishery is hindered by the 
difficulty of access to adequate markets. The splendid 
pine of the province is in demand all round the Pacific. 
It goes to San Francisco, to South America, to China, 
to Japan, and to Australia. 

In the last named country I have seen it used in 
large quantities at the silver mines of Broken Hill, 300 
miles from the coast, in the heart of the desert, the 
cost of long ocean and land carriage being more than 
counterbalanced by the facility with which, in com- 
parison with the Australian gum-tree, it can be worked 
and handled. It finds a market also in Queensland, 
where I was told that it resists better than most 
woods the attack of the white ant. The gum-tree, on 
the other hand, is now being sent to Vancouver, to be 
used for block pavement, for which it is peculiarly 
fitted. A striking illustration, certainly, of the possi- 
bilities of profitable exchange of products. 

The Douglas pine is also exported to the Eastern 
States, where for many purposes it is preferred to 
Southern pine, to Cape Colony, and to England. A 
cargo has quite recently been sent to Egypt. I believe 
that it can be obtained of greater lengths, squaring to 
a larger size, than any other wood of equal quality. 
Cedar also is abundant, and of astonishing size. It is 
used chiefly in the manufacture of shingles, which on 
account of their excellence find their way far across 
the continent. Three hundred feet is not an un- 



VII 



British Columbia 167 



common height for both pines and cedars. The girth 
of the trunks is proportionate. 

A friend at Vancouver, the manager of a large saw 
mill, mentioned to me the number of kegs of powder 
he had used within a year in blowing away the sides 
of heavy timber in order to reduce the size sufficiently 
to allow it to pass through his large gangs of saws. 

I hinted at the boldness of Western exaggeration, 
but a visit to his mill was at once arranged, and I saw 
enough to prove that his statement had a reasonable 
basis of fact upon which to rest. 

There is still a great extent of unexhausted timber- 
land. One of the largest operators told me that with 
a widened market and more capital his firm could, 
from the land it had actually under lease, as easily 
turn out 100,000,000 feet of timber as the 30,000,000 
feet which represented its present annual output. 
Considering the rapid exhaustion of forest going on in 
the United States, the value of the best timber on the 
American Continent must increase rapidly, and the 
present limitation of output in British Columbia is 
perhaps not entirely a subject for regret. 

Nowhere in the world can more impressive forest 
scenery be met with than along this Pacific coast of 
the Dominion. Even where the heavier timber has 
been cut out, the thickly growing pine-trees which 
remain, with their clean trunks, straight and lofty 
as palm-trees, and crowned by dark-green foliage, 
form a striking picture, which remains long in 
the memory. Often the heaviest growth is found 



1 68 The Great Dominion chap. 

on soil of comparatively poor quality, suggesting that 
the nourishment of these forest giants is derived as 
much from the atmosphere as from the earth. The 
fact also suggests the possibility of a continuity of 
forest products in British Columbia, since the soil 
is often unfitted for agriculture or pasturage. In the 
Government reservation of Stanley Park, at Vancouver, 
the traveller can see, with little trouble, an excellent 
example of British Columbian forests, with specimens 
of the great trees, fifteen or twenty feet in diameter, 
which once covered the site of the town. It is much 
to be desired that this fine remnant of the original 
forest may be guarded with jealous care. 

Of the extensive coal-measures of Vancouver Island 
and of their national importance I have written in a 
previous chapter. Tasmania has not a better climate 
than parts of British Columbia for the production of 
all the ordinary fruits. Many species of fruit, like the 
trees of the country, grow to an unusual size. Hops 
promise to be an important product, and are grown in 
great perfection. 

It will be noticed that the prevailing industries are 
such as require special skill even among the workmen. 
A green hand does not easily fit into the work of the 
saw mills and lumber woods. Hop-growing and fruit- 
raising are occupations which require special knowledge. 
So are cattle-raising and dairying, which, in the dry 
inland valleys, have often to be carried on by the aid 
of irrigation. The coal miner and fisherman must grow 
up to their business. Gold and silver prospecting and 



VII 



British Columbia 169 



mining in America tend more and more to drift into 
the hands of specialists, men to whom it becomes well- 
nigh an instinct to detect the " colour " of gold and 
estimate the value of ores. 

For small farmers who have some money to invest 
in good lands within marketing distance of the towns, 
and skill to work them when bought, there is an 
excellent chance, perhaps the best in Canada. The 
province still imports much of its food, and prices are 
high. As the population increases, good farming land, 
which is scarce, is sure to improve in value. But it is 
a country for small, not large farming. Lord Aberdeen 
has bought and is working a large estate in the 
Okanagan Valley, but he has adopted the sensible plan 
of encouraging the acquisition of small holdings. 

Among the towns, Victoria, though not on the main- 
land, still holds the foremost place. Originally a 
Hudson Bay trading post, it sprang into importance 
when gold was discovered on the Fraser River. The 
wealth then gained has been increased by the mining, 
sealing, and fishing industries, and by its being the 
chief centre of wholesale supply for the province. In 
this last particular it still holds its own against the 
rivalry of Vancouver. The immediate vicinity of 
Esquimalt, with which it is connected by tramway, 
makes Victoria practically our naval base for the 
North Pacific. As Esquimalt has the only British 
graving dock on the Pacific coast of America, the 
defences of the place, which are now being pushed on 
rapidly, have not been begun too soon. The docking 



170 The Great Dominion chap. 



facilities must soon be increased. When the Warspite 
in 1892-3 occupied the single dock for three months, 
its inadequacy to meet the prior rights of the Navy 
and the growing demands of merchant shipping was 
made clear. Victoria has a distinctly English look. 
With a climate like that of the warmest parts of 
Devonshire, and picturesque surroundings, it attracts 
numbers of holiday visitors from San Francisco. Con- 
nexion with California has perhaps had something to do 
with raising the rate of wages and cost of living. 

Here we see the Far West begin to merge into the 
Far East. At Victoria we meet with the advanced 
guard of that Chinese host which many believe only 
steady resistance can prevent from revolutionizing the 
industrial condition of America. To the Chinaman, 
however, Canada, and particularly British Columbia, 
owe a debt of gratitude. Without the army of 15,000 
or 20,000 Chinese labourers who assaulted the western 
slope of the Rockies, the railway across the mountains 
could scarcely have been built, or only at disastrous 
cost. The Chinaman has received his reward in 
kinder treatment than he has met with in the United 
States or in Australia. The restrictions placed upon 
his coming are not severe ; he is safe under the pro- 
tection of the laws, though not admitted to all the 
rights of citizenship. ' He is doing good work for the 
country as a domestic servant, gardener, or laundryman 
in the towns ; far up in the mountains, as a gold miner, 
winning the precious metal from old washings where 
others could not make a living. 



VII 



British Columbia 171 



Vancouver, the terminus of the Canadian Pacific 
Railway, and one of the termini of the Northern Pacific, 
furnishes an illustration of the magical change that 
can in modern times be quickly wrought by the ap- 
plication of capital in combination with science and 
labour. Eight years ago its site was entirely occupied 
by a dense forest of the magnificent pines and cedars 
of the Pacific coast ; now it has nearly twenty thousand 
inhabitants, enjoying all the comforts and most of the 
luxuries of civilization. The signs of rapid growth are 
already disappearing; dynamite has blown out the 
stumps ; fire has burnt up the wood ; massive blocks 
of buildings are seen on all sides ; the telephone is 
everywhere; electricity lights the streets, the hotels, 
even the private houses ; it works the excellent tram 
system which connects Vancouver with the beautiful 
and flourishing town of New Westminster, ten miles 
away. The people, coming chiefly from Eastern Canada 
and England, have retained their eastern and English 
habits. On Sunday the place has an aspect of quiet 
respectability like that of an English cathedral town. 
In spite of its rapid growth it has never known anything 
of the roughness of new towns across the border. The 
site of the city is admirable. A moderate elevation 
gives it an air of dignity ; the eye looks down upon the 
broad and placid waters of the harbour, beyond which 
are noble ranges of mist-covered hills. Close at hand 
is Stanley Park, a splendid reservation of primeval 
forest, covering many hundred acres. Already inter- 
sected by pleasant walks and surrounded by a carriage 



172 The Great Dominion chap, vn 



drive which winds along the cliffs and bays of the 
peninsula, giving wonderful panoramic glimpses of land 
and sea, the whole forms a recreation ground for this 
community, born but yesterday, that the proudest and 
most ancient capitals of Europe might envy. 

Vancouver is the meeting-place of the Empire's ex- 
treme west and east and south, for of the two main 
lines of steamships which frequent the port one has 
its farther terminus at Hong Kong, the other at Sydney 
Their presence vindicates the policy which led Canada 
to make such sacrifices to secure a base upon the 
Pacific. Three million pounds of tea from China and 
Japan have been landed on the wharves of Vancouver 
in a single week, and the Canadian Pacific Railway has 
made provision to add special freight steamers to its 
present fine line of passenger boats. Australian steam- 
ships already carry away full cargoes of freight. In 
addition to these two great ocean routes, minor steam- 
ship lines give water communication with San Francisco ; 
with Tacoma, Seattle, and other towns on Puget Sound ; 
with Victoria, Nanaimo, and the small ports of the 
coast farther north. An air of commercial activity 
pervades the place, and is an augury of further growth. 



CHAPTER VIII 

NORTHERN CANADA — THE GREAT FUR COUNTRY 

I HAVE said before that climatic conditions will 
always keep the bulk of Canada's population within a 
belt which has, speaking roughly, a breadth varying 
from 300 to 500 miles, and which stretches all the way 
across the continent. It is of this belt alone that I 
have hitherto spoken. It includes the old provinces 
and those western regions out of which new provinces 
are being gradually carved, where fifty or a hundred 
millions of people could manifestly find the same 
opportunities of comfortable existence as does the 
present population of five millions. 

But this belt represents barely one-third of the 
whole land area of the Dominion. North of it is 
another with features of great interest. In parts the 
limit of possible wheat culture runs far to the north ; 
in other parts the hardier crops, such as barley, 
rye, hemp, and flax, together with rapidly-maturing 
vegetables, can be successfully cultivated. This belt 
is known to contain large sections where the soil has 
all the natural fertility which characterizes the more 
southern lands hitherto referred to< 



174 The Great Dominion chap. 

Regions similarly situated in respect of climate, and 
lands inferior in point of fertility, maintain considerable 
populations in the north of Europe, and furnish much 
and varied material for commerce. In Canada their 
settlement for agricultural purposes will no doubt be 
slow, and dependent to some extent upon the occupa- 
tion of the more favourable lands to the south. But 
settlers will meanwhile be attracted for other industrial 
purposes, and it is clearly impossible to form a just 
conception of what the Dominion really is, or is likely 
to become, without taking them into consideration. 

In the past this second belt, itself a fur-producing 
country, has been associated almost exclusively in 
people's minds, even in Canada, with the still more 
northern regions, also vast in extent, where agriculture 
is yet more difficult or impossible, where even timber 
is in places wanting, and where furs furnish practically 
the whole material of commerce and industry. But 
this association of thought is a very misleading one. 
Information is still very incomplete, but enough has 
been obtained to lead to important conclusions. 

A committee of the Canadian Senate was ap- 
pointed in 1887-8 to inquire into the resources of 
Northern Canada, and particularly those of the great 
Mackenzie Basin. The field of inquiry covered the 
regions which lie between Hudson's Bay and the 
Rocky Mountains, and from the watershed of the 
Saskatchewan northward to the Arctic Ocean. After 
hearing and comparing the evidence of fur traders, 
missionary bishops and clergy, geological experts and 



viii Northern Canada 175 

travellers, the Committee reported that of this region 
274,000 square miles could be considered good arable 
land ; that the climate permitted wheat to mature over 
316,000 square miles, barley over 407,000, the potato 
over 656,000 square miles, and that the area suitable 
for pasturage was even greater. It was shown that 
the deep northern inclination of the summer isotherms 
brought it about that spring flowers and buds ap- 
peared as early north of the Great Slave Lake as at 
Winnipeg, Kingston, or Ottawa, while the length of the 
northern summer day was singularly favourable to the 
rapid growth of cereals. Along the Peace, Liard and 
other western affluents of the Mackenzie River spring 
came still earlier, and here, under the influence of 
warm south-westerly winds, the summer weather re- 
sembled that of Ontaiio, and the growth of nutritious 
native grasses was especially luxuriant. 

While the heavier timber of Eastern Canada and 
British Columbia is wanting, the supply of smaller 
timber suitable for house and ship building, for rail- 
way, mining, and other like purposes was found to be 
practically inexhaustible, and likely to prove of great 
value in supplying the needs of the treeless regions of 
Canada and the United States further south. The 
lakes and rivers yield fresh-water fish of various kinds 
and of excellent quality in extraordinary abundance. 
The auriferous region at the head of the Peace, Liard, 
and Peel Rivers is large, while mineral deposits of 
various kinds -are found in sufficient number in the 
vast mountain districts especially to justify the ex- 



176 The Great Dominion chap. 

pectation that the country will not prove inferior on 
the average in mineral production to other areas of like 
extent. 

Along the valleys of the Athabasca and Mackenzie 
Rivers deposits of coal occur at frequent intervals, and 
the existence of a very remarkable petroleum field has 
been established. For a great distance along these 
rivers the sandy soil is saturated to a depth sometimes 
of a hundred feet with tar or asphalt, and this is 
believed by geologists to have its origin in petroleum 
oozing from the Devonian rocks beneath. Oil has already 
been observed at several points, but the difficulty of 
introducing the necessary machinery into the country 
has hitherto prevented sufficient tests of the value of 
the field being made by boring. The recommendation 
of the Committee that parliament should reserve from 
sale a tract of about 40,000 square miles in order to 
include this petroleum area, furnishes some suggestion 
of its supposed extent. 

While these are among the general conclusions 
arrived at by the Committee, it must be borne in mind 
that they were based, not on detailed knowledge of the 
whole districts under consideration, but on the evidence 
of observers at widely separated points. Fur traders, 
missionaries and explorers have hitherto followed for 
the most part the great water-courses of the country, 
and have made observations extending over the whole 
year only at a comparatively few stations. The spaces 
still left between for fuller exploration are therefore 
very large. Dr. G. M. Dawson, in a careful study of the 



VIII 



Northern Canada 177 



question, enumerates no less than sixteen different 
areas, varying in size from 7,500 to 289,000 square 
miles, none of which has been subjected to intelligent 
and adequate examination. He sums up by saying 
that, " while the entire area of the Dominion is com- 
puted at 3,470,257 square miles, about 954,000 square 
miles of the continent alone, exclusive of the inhospit- 
able detached Arctic portions, is for all practicable 
purposes entirely unknown." 

Part of this almost unexplored country consists of 
the " Barren Grounds," which are chiefly known as the 
home of the musk ox, and as being frequented by 
astonishing herds of caribou, which migrate southward 
during the depth of winter, and return to the shores of 
the Arctic Ocean during the breeding season. These 
" Barren Grounds " have not, probably, much to yield to 
investigation. But there are other parts, such as the 
great Labrador peninsula, which give distinct promise 
of rewarding the adventurous explorer by mineral and 
other discoveries. 

Dreary as much of this vast northern region is, how- 
ever, severe as are the conditions of life which its more 
remote parts offer, the extent to which its products of 
one kind have long ministered to the comfort and luxury 
of mankind is very striking. It supplies furs in larger 
numbers, of finer quality and of greater value than any 
other part of the world. For more than two centuries 
the fur trade has been vigorously prosecuted, and still 
the supply, save in the case of two or three, varieties of 
animals, shows no signs of exhaustion. The furs are, in 

N 



178 



The Great Dominion 



CHAP. 



the first instance, brought almost exclusively to the 
London market. The permanence of the supply, as well 
as the number and proportion of the furs obtained, may 
be illustrated by taking the statistics of the annual sales, 
of which full returns are published, of the Hudson's Bay 
Company, at intervals of ten years during the last half 
century. The ten year period has been selected at 
random from the whole series, but except in one or two 
cases it represents a fair average of the annual product. 



— 


1853 


1863 


1873 


1883 


1893 


Badger . 


1,754 


1,545 


2,705 


1,510 


2,518 


Bear . . 


7,484 


7,571 


8,172 


11,188 


11,775 


Beaver . 


. 55,456 


114,149 


149,163 


109,462 


56,508 


Ermine . 


2,002 


1,178 


4,012 


5,112 


9,120 


Fisher . 


5,861 


6,053 


3,639 


4,640 


4,828 


Fox, Blue 


46 


29 


90 


37 


51 


Fox, Cross 


2,307 


1,946 


2,315 


1,762 


2,673 


Fox, Kitt 


2,563 


5,542 


6,930 


491 


299 


Fox, Red 


6,869 


6,402 


8,339 


5,869 


11,964 


Fox, Silver 


847 


588 


694 


506 


615 


Fox, White 


3,966 


3,365 


7,325 


5,886 


4,708 


Lynx . . 


5,361 


4,448 


5,123 


7,599 


8,659 


Marten . 


73,055 


79,979 


66,841 


62,711 


100,257 


Mink . . 


25,152 


43,961 


44,740 


47,508 


58,171 


Musquash 


493,952 


357,060 


767,896 


1,069,183 


806,103 


Musk Ox 








368 


888 


Otter, Land 


8,991 


13,331 


11,263 


11,992 


8,671 


Otter, Sea 


214 


106 


99 


7 


8 


Porpoise . 




5 




176 


323 


Rabbit . 


54,858 


39,510 


10,064 


17,830 


50,281 


Raccoon . 


1,695 


3,883 


3,636 


841 


194 


Seal, Fur . 




403 


2,073 


652 


404 


Seal, Hair 


1,425 


16,933 


9,862 


3,888 


1,366 


Skunk . 


1,619 


1,969 


1,759 


7,178 


9,214 


Swan . . 


1,016 


877 


338 


222 


28 


Wolf . . 


8,508 


3,932 


6,413 


2,121 


1,577 


Wolverine 


1,302 


1,426 


2,095 


1,883 


1,017 



vni Northern Canada 179 

Experts in the trade will easily recognize from this 
enumeration how much the world depends for its finest 
and most expensive fur products upon Northern 
Canada. 

But the figures given by no means represent the whole 
output of the country. The Hudson's Bay Company 
has now no monopoly of the trade, and large quantities 
of furs reach the market through other channels. 
The estimate given by the Senate Committee in their 
report of 1888 places the whole annual Canadian pro- 
duction at more than four million skins, the proportions 
of the various kinds not differing much from what 
appears in the statistics of the Hudson's Bay Company. 

It can scarcely be said that the furs of Siberia 
compete with those of the Dominion. As a matter of 
fact the Russian supply is not equal to the home 
demand. Quantities of the finest furs obtained in 
Canada and brought to London are sold in Germany, 
and especially at Leipsic, whence they find their way to 
the Novgorod fair, and other large centres of Russian 
trade. 

Northern Canada has therefore been rightly called 
" the last great fur preserve of the world." This 
character it is likely to retain. The buffalo, whose hide 
was once an important article of commerce, has disap- 
peared before the advance of civilization. The limits 
over which the beaver is found have steadily narrowed, 
and this animal, too, can apparently only be saved from 
extinction by the reservation of areas where it can 
multiply undisturbed for fixed periods, and by limita- 

N 2 



180 The Great Dominion 



CHAP. 



tions put upon the catch. With these exceptions, there 
seems to be no reason why the furs of Northern Canada 
may not remain a permanent element in the industry 
and commerce of the country. 

Very picturesque and romantic is the aspect which 
this chief industry of the far north has given to 
Canadian life. The long, lonely winter on the borders 
of the Arctic Circle; the shrewd and fearless Scotch 
factor, devoted to the interests of his employers, and 
cut off for years from friends and civilized society in his 
remote fort or post, with perhaps a mail once or twice 
in the year ; the hardy wyageurs, carrying the bales of 
furs over one or two thousand miles of rapid river and 
rough portage to reach the point of shipment, and then 
retracing their weary course with loads of supplies for 
another year; the trapper, pursuing his solitary and 
dangerous work by night or day in the depths of the 
forest and along the frozen northern streams ; all these 
have lent themselves naturally to the pages of romance 
and adventure. It may be doubted if any service ever 
produced a more hardy, courageous, and resourceful 
class of men than did that of the Hudson's Bay 
Company in the wide-spread domains over which it so 
long held sway. From the days of the Cavaliers and 
Prince Rupert, who was the first Governor of the 
company, to the present time seems a long bit of 
history ; but during all that period the Hudson's Bay 
Company has been a vigorous and progressive commer- 
cial body, and an important agency in maintaining the 
good will and peaceful attitude of the native Indian 



vin Northern Canada 181 

tribes which are scattered over the remote parts of the 
Dominion. The present Governor is Sir Donald Smith, 
and it is understood that among the many honours of a 
successful life he values as much as any the fact that he 
has worked his way to the head of the historic company 
in whose service his career began. 

Until 1868 the Hudson's Bay Company's Charter 
gave it almost absolute control over not merely the more 
Northern regions of Canada, but over what we now know 
of the North-West. In that year it handed over its 
territorial rights and governing powers to the Dominion. 
But it is still a powerful organization with far-reaching 
influence. Besides maintaining its distant posts and 
transport system for the fur trade, it carries on an 
immense business throughout the newly settled parts 
of the North- West, having established shops for the 
sale of goods at almost every important centre of 
population from Fort William to Victoria. By the 
terms on which it surrendered its territory to the 
Dominion it became entitled to one-twentieth of all the 
land laid off for settlement in the Fertile Belt. Three 
million five hundred thousand acres have thus already 
been assigned to it, and as much more will probably 
fall to its share, so that the company is now deeply 
interested in the sale and settlement of land. The 
changed conditions of the country have also introduced 
new features into the fur trading operations of the 
company. There is still a great extent of territory 
over which the old methods of transport by canoe and 
portage obtain. But much of the goods once sent 



1 82 The Great Dominion 



CHAP. 



to the remote north by way of York Factory and 
Moose Factory on Hudson Bay are now despatched by 
rail from Montreal to Winnipeg, which is the chief 
distributing centre for the northern districts. A steamer 
plies on the Saskatchewan in the summer for the 
transport of goods and furs, and another on Lake 
Winnipeg. On the Athabasca and Mackenzie Rivers 
three steamers are employed for the delivery of outfits 
and for bringing back the furs which have been collected. 
There are thus at present fully two thousand miles 
of steam navigation where the paddle and pole of the 
voyageur were once the only dependence. 

There is still the regular annual despatch from 
England of ships to Fort Churchill and Moose Factory, 
and the return cargo consists not only of furs, but 
also of the oil and salted salmon which have been 
collected at the various posts of the company along the 
Labrador coast. 

It will thus be seen that the Hudson's Bay Company 
continues to hold a most important relation to the 
industry and development of Northern Canada. 

There remains for mention one problem connected 
with Hudson's Bay itself, the solution of which may pro- 
foundly affect the future of some parts of the Dominion. 

Many practical men believe firmly in the possibility 
of successfully establishing a route by way of Hudson's 
Bay for the transport to Europe of the products of the 
North- West. The practicability and safety of the 
navigation for four if not five months of the year for 
vessels partially prepared to deal with ice, seems to 



viii Northern Canada 183 

be fairly well established. Among others, Admiral 
Markham confidently holds this opinion. The Hudson's 
Bay Company sends ships annually to its ports on the 
Bay, and in its long history has only lost two of these 
ships. It is known that at various times since the 
Bay was discovered between 700 and 800 vessels have 
successfully navigated its waters. These included 
English and French war ships as well as trading and 
exploring vessels. Fort Churchill furnishes an excellent 
harbour, though it is the only one on the western coast 
of the Bay, for the largest sea-going ships. Five or 
six hundred miles of railway would put Fort Churchill 
in close connection with existing lines of communication 
which extend over the great wheat and cattle region 
of the North-West. Such a line would be expected to 
tap the products of the Western States as well. Trans- 
port by a route so much shorter than those now used 
by Montreal and New York would mean a saving in 
time and expense so considerable as to distinctly modify 
the conditions of farming in the western regions of 
Canada. This saving has been estimated at £3 per 
head for cattle and five shillings per quarter for wheat. 
Though the difficulties are considerable, the inducements 
to the establishment of such a line are therefore great. 
The question of construction will probably be decided 
by the extent to which production in the North- West 
presses upon the means of transportation. That again 
will depend in part on the completeness of the water- 
carriage established from the head of Lake Superior to 
the sea. 



CHAPTER IX 

TRADE RELATIONS AND TRADE POLICY 

What may be called the national interest of Great 
Britain in Canada as an integral part of the Empire 
is out of all proportion to her immediate trade interest. 
Although Canadians take of British goods about three 
times as much per head as do their neighbours in the 
United States, still Canada at present furnishes only 
about 3 per cent, of the whole volume of British im- 
ports ; the percentage which she takes of British ex- 
ports is little, if any, greater. Canadian exports to 
Britain are certain to increase greatly, especially in the 
matter of food supply ; imports from Britain will also 
increase with the growth of population and wealth, or 
still more from a change of trade policy. But even a 
large increase would furnish no measure of Canada's 
significance to the Empire. What has been said in 
previous chapters about her naval stations, her coal 
supply, her facilities for communication across the 
American continent, her essential relation to the mari- 
time position of the Empire, seems to make the national 
relationship of the Dominion, entirely apart from trade, 



ch. ix Trade Relations and Trade Policy 185 

a matter of vital concern to British people. It is this 
fact, more than the actual volume of her commerce, 
which justifies in England and throughout the Empire 
careful study of her trade interests and trade inclina- 
tions. Are they such as are likely to modify her 
national relationship, as is often asserted ? Has the 
idea of annexation to the United States taken any 
stronghold on the Canadian mind, or are there decisive 
trade reasons why it should do so in the future ? As 
to the prevailing state of feeling at present, taking 
the country as a whole, there can be no reasonable 
doubt. It may be questioned whether there is in 
Canada to-day, from Atlantic to Pacific, any political 
passion so strong as opposition to absorption into the 
United States. It is practically accurate to say that 
no avowed annexationist could be elected to the 
Dominion Parliament. If any believer in annexation 
gets a seat there, it is by concealing his views. Mr. 
Goldwin Smith, who has placed himself openly at the 
head of a society formed to bring about annexation, 
or, as he terms it, continental union, has quoted in 
a letter to the American press the name — apparently 
the only one he could discover — of Mr. Solomon White, 
then member of the Ontario Local Legislature for a 
border constituency, but since defeated, as a Parlia- 
mentary advocate of the idea. I had the opportunity 
of discussing the subject rather thoroughly with Mr. 
White, and certainly, if annexation has no more ardent 
advocate than he, the cause is not likely to make 
progress. 



1 86 The Great Dominion chap. 

While the opinion of the people as a whole is thus 
clearly defined, it may be admitted that along the 
borders, where the frontier, with its Custom houses 
carrying out the regulations of a high protective tariff, 
offered hindrances to local trade, a certain amount of 
annexation talk was in past years heard. It has also 
been heard from time to time among bitter and dis- 
appointed political partisans. The question is never 
discussed on grounds of political, social, or moral ad- 
vantage, but entirely from a trade basis. Into this 
discussion it was deeply interesting to enter. One 
preliminary condition I found it necessary to fix. It 
is useless to discuss the local or peculiar trade relations 
of a parish, a town, or a county in a country which 
covers half a continent. Even observations which ex- 
tend only over a single province may be extremely 
misleading in drawing general conclusions for so vast 
an area. Only those great dominating industries or 
interests which must finally determine national policy 
are worth taking into account. Narrowing the sub- 
ject thus, a person finds himself face to face with one 
primary consideration — What is the natural market 
for Canadian products ? This is a question much 
debated in Canadian party politics ; it is a question 
which should be studied closely in England, where it 
is often carelessly assumed that the contiguity of the 
United States creates for Canada an overwhelming 
interest in the market nearest at hand. Without 
detailed examination of the facts, this conclusion is a 
natural one. That 6 5,000,000 of people on its im- 



ix Trade Relations and Trade Policy 187 

mediate borders should make a far greater demand 
on the products of the Dominion than 40,000,000 of 
people 3,000 miles away, seems, on first thought, a 
reasonable inference. It does not seem so reasonable 
when we reflect on the one simple fact that the 
staple products of Canada are, with one or two ex- 
ceptions, staple products of the United States as well, 
and that, therefore, over a large range of industry, the 
two countries are natural rivals in markets where their 
surplus products are required. There is a physical 
fact, too, which must be once more specially noted 
in considering the question. Almost to the heart of 
the continent Canada enjoys the advantage of water 
carriage — a circumstance which beyond everything 
else minimizes for commercial purposes the eifect of 
distance. When the canal system is complete, as it 
soon will be, it will be possible to send Canadian pro- 
ducts in ships of 2,000 tons burden from the head of 
Lake Superior to Montreal, for transference to larger 
vessels, or even direct to Liverpool, Manchester, or 
London, without breaking bulk. Keeping these con- 
siderations in view, it seems to me capable of demon- 
stration that the great and dominant trading interests 
of Canada lie with Britain rather than with the United 
States — with the far market rather than with the 
near. This is, I think, true at present ; it is still more 
strikingly true if we consider the country's prospective 
development. The statement will bear investigation 
in detail, and we may begin with a great staple 
product. 



1 88 The Great Dominion chap. 

If there is one thing about which Canadians feel 
confident, it is that the settlement of population in the 
North- West will result in the production of a large 
surplus of wheat. That wheat will necessarily find 
its natural market, as the small surplus now does, 
across the Atlantic, not in a wheat-exporting country 
like the United States ; its carriage implies the pros- 
perity of the lake shipping, the canals, the railways, 
the ocean ports, and ocean shipping. A million or 
two more of wheat-producing settlers on the prairies 
would make this interest one of the greatest import- 
ance all the way from Regina to Montreal, St. John, 
and Halifax. 

The cattle trade of Canada with Britain has grown 
rapidly ; more than 100,000 live cattle have been sent 
across the Atlantic in a single year. In this trade 
the United States, which sends more than 300,000, is 
her greatest rival. Any increase of the cattle export — 
and it is likely to increase largely — will manifestly be for 
the British market. With dead meat and cattle products 
the same is true. Cheese goes almost exclusively to 
the United Kingdom : for the best quality of butter 
the same market is best. I have pointed out in a 
previous chapter the probability that pork, in the 
production of which inferior qualities of wheat can 
be profitably utilized, may become a large Canadian 
export. It would not go south to compete with 
American corn-fed pork and the great packing es- 
tablishments of Chicago. The pork-packing establish- 
ment now at Ingersoll sends all its surplus output 



ix Trade Relations and Trade Policy 189 

to England ; a larger one has also been started by 
an English company at Woodstock, with the express 
purpose of inducing farmers in the neighbourhood to 
rear animals best suited for the home market, as the 
same company and others have already led Irish and 
Danish farmers to do, to their immense advantage. 

The United States have till lately been the best 
market for such horses as Canada had to sell. A blow 
was struck at this trade by the imposition of a high 
duty, but the substitution of electricity for horses on 
tramway systems seems likely to destroy altogether the 
American market for ordinary horses without reference 
to tariff. For the best quality of horses Britain has 
always been the better market, and the development of 
the trade will depend upon the attention paid to 
improved breeding. More than 5,000 horses were 
sent from Canada to the United Kingdom during 
the shipping season of 1894. 

In 1893 Canada sent more than 600,000 barrels of 
apples, to the United Kingdom. One of the largest 
dealers in Ontario told me that this was the only market 
to be relied on, and that though about 100,000 bushels 
were sent to the United States in the same year the 
fact was exceptional. 

The great timber trade of the St. Lawrence and 
maritime provinces is chiefly with Great Britain ; and 
British Columbia, which has hitherto chiefly supplied 
Pacific ports, is now beginning to ship to England also. 
The exhaustion of American forests, however, is no 
doubt stimulating the demand in the United States for 



190 The Great Dominion chap. 

some kinds of Canadian timber, and a large trade will 
result from the abolition of the import duty. 

Experiments made on a large scale of shipping 
poultry from Ontario to England have proved success- 
ful, and the trade is capable of indefinite development. 
A single exporter in Western Ontario told me that for 
seven years he had each season sent several carloads of 
turkeys through New York (in order to secure the most 
rapid transit) to Liverpool, and had found the operation 
profitable and satisfactory. The market thus reached 
through the United States at a distance of 3,500 miles 
was, he added, practically unlimited, and he was amazed 
that the nearer maritime provinces did not avail them- 
selves of it more fully. For the small and slipshod 
dealer along the border the near market for poultry is 
no doubt the best; for the large exporter, carefully 
studying methods of treatment and transportation, the 
distant market makes the best returns. 

Canadian trade with Great Britain is in some par- 
ticulars much less than it will be when proper organiza- 
tion in the carrying trade has been secured and careful 
study given to the needs of the British market. Of 
what these can do we have a striking illustration in 
the case of cheese. Twenty-five years ago Canada sent 
scarcely any cheese to the United Kingdom; the 
methods of manufacture were poor ; the industry was 
without efficient organization. A resolute effort was 
made to improve, the best systems were adopted, 
factories established, and the greatest care was taken 
to ship only the best qualities, with the result that 



ix Trade Relations and Trade Policy 191 

an export which in 1868 was valued at $500,000 
had in 1881 risen to $5,000,000, and in 1891 to 
$10,000,000. In the latter year Canada sent to Great 
Britain 106,000,000 lbs. ; the United States, its chief 
competitor, only 82,000,000 lbs., or one half of what it 
was sending in 1881. In 1893 the Canadian export 
had risen beyond 133,000,000 lbs., which was 53 per 
cent, of the whole British import, while the American 
export had dropped still further to 81,000,000 lbs. In 
that year Great Britain took Canadian cheese to the 
value of $13,360,237, while all other countries took less 
than $50,000 worth. 

The quality of Canadian cheese also has become so 
distinct that steps are being taken to have all produced 
within the country for export officially branded. At 
the Chicago Exhibition the superiority of Canadian 
cheese was strikingly maintained. In the spring 
exhibit, out of 136 awards no less than 125 fell to 
Canada, and the proportion at the fall exhibit was nearly 
as large. Most of the Canadian output is from Ontario 
and Quebec, where I found that cheese is considered 
one of the most profitable farm products. One observes 
that the farming districts of the Eastern peninsula of 
Ontario, apparently the most generally prosperous in 
Canada, are those in which cheese manufacture has 
been most carefully developed. In the maritime 
provinces the opportunities are even better, since a 
moist climate gives superior pasturage, and there is 
much land singularly adapted for raising hay. 

What has been done with cheese could unquestion- 



192 The Great Dominion chap. 

ably be done with butter. There are no better butter- 
producing districts in the world than the marsh and 
intervale lands of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, but 
the introduction of factories capable of turning out a first- 
class article of even quality, points essential to a com- 
mand of the best English markets, has only begun, and 
means of transportation have not been perfected. It is 
a distinct rebuke to Canadian enterprise to find that 
New Zealand and the Australian colonies, which have to 
send their products 12,000 miles, and across the tropics, 
are taking the lead in this important particular, simply 
by superior skill and completeness of organization. 
Much attention is now being given to the matter, the 
General Government has arranged a system of instruc- 
tion in butter making, and the cheese factories are being 
adapted to the production of butter during the winter. It 
has been mentioned that the apple trade, too, large as it is, 
has been much hampered by bad packing and the export 
of inferior fruit. The care and, I may add, honesty in 
these particulars shown by the Tasmanian grower might 
well give a lesson to the over-sharp Nova Scotian or 
Ontario packer, by which he would secure better returns. 
If the latter could but watch the keen faces of a group of 
London costermongers at Covent Garden when the heads 
of the apple barrels are knocked out, and the contents 
exposed to the centre before sale, he would understand 
that his clever packing is sheer stupidity. The name 
of any unequal apple-packer in Canada should be posted 
for public execration, so great is the harm that he does 
to one of the most promising industries of the country. 



ix Trade Relations and Trade Policy 193 

Of products not now of importance, but likely to 
become so, nickel and silver are worthy of mention. I 
visited the mines of nickel ore at Sudbury, in Ontario, 
which surpass anything yet found in the world. It is 
difficult to obtain accurate information about these 
deposits, since, in the uncertainty as to the future of 
the metal, both the English and Canadian companies 
which have works here are exceedingly reticent about 
the extent and value of their possessions. But the 
reports of Canadian geologists and of experts sent 
by the American Government to institute inquiries 
make it clear that the supply of nickel in the district 
is practicaRy inexhaustible. At present a considerable 
quantity of ore is smelted, and shipped chiefly to South 
Wales and the United States. The output could easily 
be increased, but it is fixed by the comparatively limited 
application of the metal in the arts. If nickel realizes 
the expectations conceived about it, and becomes a 
necessary ingredient in armour-plating, it will no doubt 
seek the English centres where armour-plating is 
chiefly manufactured. 

From the Kootenay district in British Columbia a 
large production of silver seems assured. Like the 
silver of Broken Hill in Australia, it will flow to English 
markets, rather than go southward to compete with 
Nevada and other States which have the largest silver 
output in the world. 

Summing up, then, it would appear that for wheat, 
cattle, dead meat, cheese, butter, pork, apples, timber* 
nickel, and silver, the distant market is, or can easily be 

o 



194 The Great Dominion chap. 



made, the better ; the one to which these products will 
naturally go. That they include the dominant indus- 
tries of Canada, those which must always furnish the 
largest surplus for export, cannot, I think, be success- 
fully denied. 

Against this group of products we must now put 
another before we can fully weigh existing trade con- 
ditions. In this second group the chief place must be 
given to coal. The bituminous coal of Vancouver 
Island, though supplying British Columbia west of the 
Rockies, and sent to many points in the Pacific Ocean, 
still finds its largest market in San Francisco and other 
American towns. Here it has been for some years faced 
by a duty of seventy-five cents per ton, the removal of 
which unquestionably means an enlarged market and 
increased profits. The same is true of the Lethbridge 
mines of Alberta. The Nova Scotia mines, in the last 
few years, through special favour shown to them by the 
Government railways, and under a protection similar to 
that given to American coal, have found a home market 
better than they ever enjoyed in New England, under 
reciprocity, but to them too the freedom of the American 
market will give a decided stimulus. 

Next to coal is barley, which has hitherto found its 
Way chiefly to the United States. There seems no 
sufficient reason why Canadian barley should not come 
to supply the large demand in England, and, judging 
from what has already been accomplished, it will prob- 
ably do so in time. When the American market was 
closed by the McKinley tariff, the farmers had to make a 



ix Trade Relations and Trade Policy 195 



change from the four-rowed barley commonly grown 
and bought for American breweries to the two-rowed 
variety which brewers prefer in England. The export 
to Britain has increased under this change, but the 
Canadian farmer has not yet learned to exercise the care 
required to match the sensitiveness of the English buyer 
to the least variations of colour and grading. Eggs, 
shut out by the McKinley tariff, have been diverted with 
singular rapidity to Britain — more than 40,000,000 
having been sent over in 1892, and nearly 50,000,000 in 
1893. The trade has proved profitable, but still, for so 
perishable a commodity, the advantage of a near market, 
at least as an alternative, is manifest. The United 
States duty on eggs has now been reduced nearly one 
half. 

The interests of the large fishing industry are divided. 
Tinned salmon and lobsters, of which there is a large 
export, go almost exclusively to Britain, salted fish to 
the Mediterranean, the West Indies, and South America, 
fresh fish to the States. 

If now we add spring lambs and chickens, vegetables, 
and other minor farm and mineral products, some too 
bulky for distant exchange, some too perishable for 
long carriage — chiefly such as the maritime provinces 
furnish to New England towns — we have pretty well 
exhausted the lines of production on which Canada 
must look to the United States for the best market. 

This group, then, comprises barley (for the im- 
mediate present only), coal, fresh fish, and minor farm 
products, to which should be added, I think, timber 

o 2 



196 The Great Dominion 



in some forms, and some varieties of iron ore peculiar 
to Canada. But in regard to most of these products 
Canada holds on the American continent a natural 
superiority which is beginning to assert itself. San 
Francisco, as I have pointed out, depends on British 
sources for all its good coal. New England factories 
want Nova Scotia coal, and the towns of Northern 
Montana require that of Lethbridge, because it is the 
cheajDest and the best accessible. The brewing in- 
terest of the States is united in pressing for the 
removal of the duty on Canadian barley, which has 
long been considered the best on the continent. The 
extraordinary prices at times paid for Ontario timber 
limits by American operators prove the comparative ex- 
haustion of American forests. For fresh fish the great 
American cities depend more and more upon the northern 
Canadian waters. 

The conclusion seems to be irresistible that for the 
main lines of Canadian export the British market is 
infinitely the more important. In several of the other 
cases I have enumerated, where the near market is 
advantageous, the American people have already in 
their own interests been induced to open their 
country more freely to Canadian products. Only a 
feeling of trade animosity such as was displayed in 
the last Message of President Harrison can prevent 
them from doing this still further. 

To any policy dictated by this feeling Canadians 
will undoubtedly reply in the future as in the past, by 
either finding new markets for what they have to sell, 



ix Trade Relations and Trade Policy 197 

or by turning their attention to production of other 
kinds, The unlooked-for result upon Canadian com- 
merce of the operation of the McKinley tariff proves 
that even this prospect need not be discouraging. The 
returns for 1892 indicate that the trade of Canada for 
that year was the largest in her history up to that 
time, and that while there was a decline in the case of 
the United States, chiefly owing to the exclusion of 
barley and eggs, there was a large increase with every 
other important country with which the Dominion 
deals, and especially with Great Britain. Compared 
with 1891, the exports to Great Britain rose from 
$49,280,328. to $64,900,549; those to the United 
States dropped from $41,138,625 to $33,830,696. 
This change is very remarkable and significant. A 
vigorous effort to open up a larger trade with the 
West Indies has met with fair success, and exchange with 
Australia has increased rapidly with the introduction of 
better steam communication across the Pacific. 

In what I have said there has been no intention to 
question the great value to Canada of the freest trade 
relations attainable with the United States. My object 
has been to show that they are not absolutely essential 
to her prosperity ; that, in fact, Canada holds upon the 
American continent a fairly independent trade position, 
which, if properly made use of, is quite sufficient to give 
security to her political status. Both countries have 
much to gain from increased interchange of products, 
but to suppose that the greater commercially dominates 
the smaller is an utter mistake. It is a remarkable 



198 The Great Dominion 



CHAP. 



fact that in the midst of almost universal depression — 
a depression which has particularly affected the United 
States — the increase of Canadian trade referred to as 
taking place in 1892 was maintained in 1893. 

These truths need to be impressed upon Canadians 
themselves. In some parts of the country one heard 
statements made, by otherwise intelligent men, which 
indicated that party politics were too absorbing to 
permit study of the bare arithmetical facts of trade and 
commerce. The Liberal party has exaggerated the 
importance of the United States market, and has 
shown a readiness to make excessive sacrifices to obtain 
it. The Conservative party, or rather a section of it, 
has staked too much upon the hope of preferential 
trade with Great Britain instead of depending upon the 
innate advantages and opportunities of Canada itself. 
To make the most of these last much yet remains to be 
done. The lack of close study of the British market and 
of a resolution to put upon it only the best products in the 
best condition has been referred to. An improved freight 
service across the Atlantic should be provided. Sir 
William Van Home has pointed out to the Toronto Board 
of Trade on a public occasion that the use of modern 
ships, with the best coal-saving appliances, would mean, 
by reduction of freight charges alone, an addition of 
10 per cent, to the present value of a large volume of 
Canadian exports. Most important of all, perhaps, is 
tariff revision. These three things — great care in 
studying and meeting the demands of the British 
market, improved means of transportation, and such 



ix Trade Relations and Trade Policy 199 

lowering of duties as will reduce the cost of agricultural 
production to the lowest possible point and encourage 
exchange with the mother country — will do more for 
Canada than she can ever hope to gain from preferential 
treatment by Great Britain. The latter is distant and 
doubtful, the others practicable and open to immediate 
adoption. 

On the question of tariffs, something more must be 
said. With the export trade of Canada in many lines 
turning so decisively towards the United Kingdom, 
English people will naturally study with interest the 
prospects of an equivalent return trade, and ask 
whether Canada shows any inclination to relax her pro- 
tective system either towards Britain or towards the 
world. The prolonged political conflict over trade 
policy has not yet ceased, and one hears widely varying 
expressions of opinion based sometimes on party feeling, 
sometimes on genuine conviction. The Dominion, like 
the United States, is manifestly in the midst of a 
transition period. Some conclusions, however, seem to 
me clear. . 

It may be said with confidence that protection has 
now reached its highest point in Canada. It would 
probably never have got the hold it has, save for the 
example and neighbourhood of the United States. The 
example was to some extent misleading. Protection 
always had a better chance of success, temporary or 
permanent, in the United States than in Canada, 
because the former country had naturally a greater 
variety of production within itself, and also because it 



200 The Great Dominion chap. 

started upon its protective career with a population 
large enough to give an immense area of internal free 
trade. Yet I cannot think that the adoption of a pro- 
tective system by Canada was at the time a mistake, or 
has been without good results. It was entered upon 
under peculiar circumstances. The North- West had 
just been acquired ; its opening up seemed a national 
necessity ; a pledge had been given to connect by rail 
the Pacific coast with the Atlantic. The older 
provinces shrank from a task so vast, which involved 
raising revenues beyond precedent. It is safe to say 
that without the hope held out by the protective policy 
of an increased manufacturing population at home, and 
a wider exclusive market in the West, the work would 
never have been undertaken or carried rapidly on to 
successful completion. Again, the neighbouring re- 
public had just denounced a mutually beneficial reci- 
procity treaty, and adopted a fiscal system which, in its 
operation, exposed the incipient industries of a weaker 
country like Canada to the greatest dangers. 

Monopolist manufacturers at home might be bad, many 
a free trader reasoned, but their work was, at least, done 
within the country. To be at the mercy of highly pro- 
tected manufacturers in another land, where rings and 
trusts held almost unbounded sway, had about it no 
redeeming feature. Once more, the large revenues 
which it was necessary to raise could not be obtained by 
direct taxation, to which the habits and prejudices of 
the people had long been utterly opposed. 

What the public men of the day had to consider, in 



ix Trade Relations and Trade Policy 201 



carrying out their daring but, as events have proved, 
their well-judged plans, was how to extract from the 
taxpayers a very large revenue in the form that seemed 
least objectionable. A tariff at once high and incident- 
ally protective was the method adopted. If we grant all 
that may be urged as to the fallacies of the protective 
idea, still, politicians no more than doctors can be greatly 
blamed for giving a sugar coating to an unpleasant 
medicine. 

As it was, the stimulus of the national policy, as the 
system was called, whether artificial or otherwise, 
carried the country through a period of great strain and 
effort — a period, too, in which it acquired a self-reliance 
never known before. Conditions have now greatly 
changed. Several circumstances combine to make a 
more or less decisive change of policy not only advisable 
but possible of adoption. The limit of large capital 
expenditure undertaken for necessary works has now 
been almost reached. The essential railway systems 
are practically completed. The same will soon be true 
of the canals. Industries for which temporary protec- 
tion was deemed necessary have now had a good start, 
and may fairly be asked to begin to stand alone. The 
general expansion of trade gives buoyancy to the 
revenue, and the Government had in 1890, 1891, and 
1893 a large surplus to deal with, and a small one in 
1892, though sugar had just been made entirely free. 

There seems to me to be a consensus of opinion 
throughout the North- West, in the agricultural com- 
munities of the East, and among men of independent 



202 The Great Dominion chap. 



thought everywhere, that the first object of Canadian 
statesmanship should now be to make the Dominion a 
cheap country to live in. A large inflow of population 
to the unsettled areas, the greatest good of the greatest 
number in all parts, seem to depend on this. Even 
manufactures which have made great strides under the 
impulse of protection now feel a still greater need of 
the wide market which only a large and prosperous 
agricultural population can supply. The extreme 
depression in the price of agricultural produce has led 
farmers to consider more closely than they ever did 
before the price of the manufactured goods they buy 
and in some provinces there has been much organiz- 
ation to give political effect to their views. 

Greater freedom of trade, then, is gradually coming- 
in response to a strong popular demand. It might have 
won in the last general election against all the strength 
of Sir John Macdonald and a powerful Government, had 
not a small section of the Liberal party allowed its 
advocacy to be mixed up with suspicions of their fidelity 
to national connexion — suspicions which can in no wise 
attach to the party as a whole. That election, and still 
more the bye-elections which followed, killed the idea 
of commercial union with the United States as then 
suggested, which involved discrimination against the 
motherland. With the idea of commercial union has 
since completely vanished any inclination which here 
and there may have been harboured towards political 
union. In 1892 some remnants of this feeling could 
yet be discovered; in 1894 it was gone. The un- 



ix Trade Relations and Trade Policy 203 

paralleled wave of business depression which swept over 
the United States during the interval ; the spectacle 
of Coxeyite armies of the unemployed moving on 
Washington; of Atlantic steamboats and Canadian 
railway trains crowded with emigrants returning from 
the United States ; of industry paralyzed by strikes 
which divided authority made it difficult to repress — 
all made Canadians more conscious than they had ever 
been before of the serious social and political problems 
which their neighbours have to confront. The fact 
that Canada's industrial condition was meanwhile 
scarcely affected emphasized the advantages of her 
independent position on the continent. 

Now that the struggle against commercial union is 
over, a broader and truer conception of improved and 
freer trade relations is growing up. The Conservative 
leaders are not, I think, unwilling to recognize this new 
tendency of the public mind. Any one who studies 
Canada from coast to coast will be convinced that in 
doing so they will be serving their own interests. The 
Government, however, secure in a large majority, can, 
until the approach of a general election, suit its own 
convenience in dealing with the question. In the 
Session of Parliament for 1893 the growing feeling in 
favour of a reduction of protective duties was staved off 
by the promise of a searching inquiry into the working 
of the national policy in all parts of the Dominion, an 
inquiry which has since been carried out by the Finance 
Minister and his assistants. This inquiry led to a 
revision of the tariff, and very considerable reductions, 



204 The Great Dominion chap. 



though not so large or so numerous as had been 
expected. The process of reduction is likely to go 
further. The Conservative party seems resolved to 
cling to its traditional policy of protection in the case 
of special industries, while proposing from time to time 
a considerable advance in tariff reform as circum- 
stances make- this possible. The Liberal party claims 
that it is the truer representative of unshackled 
trade. The tendency is the same in both political 
parties. 

There will be difficulties to overcome. Large 
revenues must still be raised; vested interests will 
make themselves considered. The manufacturing 
centres of the East will make their influence felt 
as well as agricultural interests West and East. Some 
industries will make a strong plea for continued sup- 
port. Still there are numberless directions in which 
fetters can be removed from trade, and the tendencies 
are manifestly in that direction. As changes are made 
there will be a strong desire to make it favour trade 
with the motherland. It is claimed that this is done 
by the recent revision. Any allusion to such freer 
trade made in popular assemblies is sure to draw 
out enthusiastic applause. Mr. d' Alton M'Carthy, 
the most prominent private member of the Conserva- 
tive party, has openly declared himself in favour of a 
direct and unconditional reduction of duties on English 
goods. This is not sentiment, but business. A return 
cargo makes cheap freights. A country which hopes 
to cover the North Atlantic with ships carrying its 



ix Trade Relations and Trade Policy 205 

products to England cannot, if it is wise, wish to 
see those ships return in ballast. 

There are one or two things which it seems well to 
point out to the British manufacturer who looks on the 
Canadian as his rival. The impression left upon my 
mind by the study of Canadian manufacturing develop- 
ment in relation to British trade is this. In new 
countries like Canada, under a protective system, and 
even without it, there will be a tendency to develop all 
the rougher forms of manufacture locally. The cheap- 
ness of the article produced, the small margin of profit, 
the cost of carrying material, all contribute to make 
this natural. I believe that coarse cottons or woollens, 
for instance, can be produced in Eastern Canada to-day 
and placed upon the market as cheaply as those 
from Manchester or Yorkshire. The policy of the 
English manufacturer, under such conditions, is mani- 
fest. He must make up his mind to turn more and 
more — and he might as well do it without grumbling — 
from the lower to the higher forms of manufacture. 
With his abundant capital, with greater attention to 
technical education among his workpeople, with the 
fuller command that he has of mechanical and artistic 
skill, he can easily do this. In this field he will find 
a constantly enlarging market in proportion as both 
manufactures and agriculture increase the prosperity 
and buying capacity of the new communities. Let me 
give a practical illustration of what I mean. I have 
observed a large cotton mill started in one of the 



206 The Great Dominion chap. 

maritime provinces of the Dominion, giving employ- 
ment to many hundreds of hands. Cheap land, cheap 
building material, low taxes, easy water carriage for the 
raw cotton, adundance of cheap fuel from the waste 
wood of saw mills, and excellent facilities for railway 
distribution make it possible for this mill, even with a 
greater outlay for wages, to compete successfully in gray 
and other coarse cottons with those of England. In 
this particular line of goods, therefore, the Manchester 
trade is checked. But, if the Manchester manufacturer 
could observe how each year the shops at which these 
prosperous Canadian artisans deal become more and 
more packed with the finer goods which they require, 
he might learn two lessons — first, that it is stupid to 
try to force his old wares on a market where he 
is handicapped ; and, secondly, that with a little 
adaptability the new condition of things might be 
turned to his own great advantage. All observation of 
colonial markets convinces one that the English manu- 
facturer has as much reason to study the changing 
wants of the colonists in manufactured goods as the 
colonist has to study the needs of the home consumer 
in the matter of food supply. 

At Woodstock, Ontario, I glanced hurriedly, under 
the conduct of the proprietor, through the largest high- 
class "dry goods" (drapery, millinery, &c.) establish- 
ment in the town. Seventy or eighty per cent, of all 
the goods sold were of British production, he told me. 
" But," he added, as we passed through a room devoted 



ix Trade Relations and Trade Policy 207 

almost exclusively to ladies' mantles, " all these are from 
Germany." " Why Germany ? " I asked. " More taste, 
better material, better work for the same amount of 
money than can be got in England." He left the 
impression on my mind that the Canadian mantle 
trade now centres chiefly in Berlin. That is something 
for the English manufacturer to consider and remedy if 
he can. It was but a passing observation, but close 
inquiry might discover many such cases, and close 
inquiry is what the manufacturer is bound to make in 
these days. 

There are, of course, difficulties in the way of giving 
preference to British trade. It has hitherto been 
supposed that under existing treaties Germany and 
Belgium can claim the advantage of any reduction 
made to Britain. Whether this be true or not, the 
anxiety of Canada that these treaties should not be 
renewed indicates the tendency of her policy. 

On all sides the business outlook for Canada seems 
most encouraging. She has in actual fact a rapidly 
increasing trade with Britain. She has the hope of 
better trade relations with the United States. She 
is carefully cultivating minor but useful lines of ex- 
change with the far East, Australasia, the West Indies, 
and South America. Her credit stands higher than 
that of any other great colony of the Empire. She 
has prudently ceased to be a great borrower, but for 
her three per cent, loans thrice the amount for which 
she asks has been offered. Her equipment for internal 



208 The Great Dominion chap, ix 

development is excellent, and she has abundant room 
to receive the population which has been her greatest 
lack. The mass of the people are industrious, and 
her producing power is steadily increasing. Finally 
there is the fact which I have tried to prove — that 
her industries and the inclinations of her people alike 
point to close commercial and political consolidation 
with the nation of which she forms a part. 



CHAPTER X 

LABOUR, EDUCATION, AND POLITICAL TENDENCIES 

From what has already been said it will be easily 
inferred that Canada is not a " paradise " for the 
working man, nor for anybody else who looks for an 
easy time or for great results with little effort. In 
other words, it is not a land of illusions. Any visitor, 
who is able to make comparisons with other countries 
will be struck as he travels through the rural districts, 
and especially through those of the older provinces, 
by the large proportion of comfortable-looking homes 
which he sees. If he has an opportunity to study 
them closely he will find that the comfort is very 
real and substantial, but he will also find that they 
are homes which have in almost all cases been won by 
steady, unflinching industry. 

For success, an emigrant to the Dominion must 
therefore have something in him, whether on the 
prairie or woodland. " Is Canada a good enough 
country for a working man to go to ? " one is often 
asked in great British centres of population. " Is the 
working man good enough to go to such a country as 

p 



2io The Great Dominion chap. 



Canada ? " is often a more pertinent inquiry. Has he 
the necessary backbone, the capacity to adapt himself 
to new circumstances, such an appreciation of the 
benefits of a healthy life, physical and moral, that he 
is ready to sacrifice other things to obtain it ? Are 
cheap music-halls, and cheap beer at every street 
corner, and a loaf ready baked for a wife untrained to 
domestic cares, more to him than fresh air, and plenty 
of space, and conditions of life which, if rough, are at 
any rate wholesome, and have in them the promise of 
health, independence, and improved social opportunities 
for his children ? 

Fifty years ago the British emigrant was almost 
always welcomed abroad, for he was usually a son of 
the soil, accustomed to a simple life, hard work, and 
long hours. But the emigrant who is the product of 
half a century of the artificial life of great towns, 
fresh from the atmosphere of trade unions, strikes, and 
social agitations, is looked at rather askance in Canada. 
The popular thought crystallizes itself into the advice 
which colonial agents give concerning the best classes 
to emigrate — farmers with a little capital, agricultural 
labourers, country girls to be trained for domestic 
service. For these there is always plenty of room 
and occupation. 

The reports which occasionally cross the Atlantic of 
an unemployed class in Canada must never be looked 
at in the same light as the question of the unemployed 
in England, or even in Australia. They only mean 
that people have drifted thither who are unfitted for 



Labotir and Political Tendencies 2 1 1 



Canadian life. If any man is out of work it is because 
he cannot or will not adapt himself to the abundant 
work there is to do. Artisans who can or will only do 
one kind of work run a good deal of risk in going to a 
country where versatility, a willingness and capacity 
to turn the hand to anything, is often the key to 
success. For men with plenty of backbone there are 
the best of opportunities in Canada ; for men without 
it the country is not to be recommended. 

" There is plenty of work and plenty to eat in this 
country," were the words in which an Aberdeen woman 
at Dunmore, after speaking of hard times in the old 
home, and hard work followed by prosperity in the 
new, summed up to me her view of Canada. The 
remark has a very general application. But it should 
be said that the hard work is of a kind which does not 
depress. The climate appears to lend itself singularly 
to the necessity for vigorous effort. Lady Cathcart's 
agent told me that he asked one of the crofter emigrants, 
whom he had found persistently shiftless and careless 
at home, how he managed without additional help 
to keep everything neat and tidy on his Manitoba 
farm. " One never seems to get tired in this air," was 
the reply. No doubt the sense of personal ownership 
and independent effort was a co-operating influence, 
but the difference between the moist, enervating at- 
mosphere of the Hebrides and the electric air of the 
North- West would account for a good deal. The farm 
labourer of the Southern or Eastern English counties 
seems a heavy, awkward fellow when compared with 

p 2 



2 12 The Great Dominion chap. 



the wiry, active, and versatile backwoodsman of Eastern 
Canada. Climate doubtless has something to do with 
this also, for the step of the same labourer seems to 
quicken and his eye to brighten when he has been for 
a time on Canadian soil. 

Curiously enough, although strenuous work is thus 
the distinctive note of Canadian life, one may yet 
travel for months through the country without hearing 
the subject of labour discontent specially referred to. 
Labour problems as they are known in England and 
Australia, for instance, do not fill any large place in 
people's thoughts. The reasons for this contrast are 
not hard to discover. 

In the first place, the country is not crowded. 

Canada's prime characteristic is the abundance of 
land which is easily accessible and which gives a fair 
and speedy return to individual labour with a compara- 
tively slight expenditure of capital. There is no desert 
interior, as in Australia, to limit the range of settle- 
ment, and the people are free to spread over the whole 
country from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The pre- 
vailing occupations are agricultural, and as a rule each 
farmer owns the land he works. A man who is hurrying 
to get through with his fall ploughing before the frost 
comes on, or to make the most of the first fortnight's 
seeding in spring, or is trying to get the greatest 
possible amount of his own work squeezed into the 
short summer, or the autumn which presses so closely 
upon it, has not much leisure to think over the eight 
hours' question, or to spend time on labour agitations. 



x Labour and Political Tendencies 213 

Not how many hours he ought to work, but how much 
work he can put through in a day, is the paramount 
question. This applies to the warmer seasons. In the 
lumber woods and on the farms in winter labour has 
a natural limitation in the shortness of the northern 
day. There is then much time for recreation or self- 
improvement. When a man is his own master and 
retains the profits of his industry, the labour problem 
takes on new aspects for him. Fortunately for Canada 
the majority of workers are their own masters. The 
natural conditions of the Dominion thus appear to 
relegate serious labour problems to a very remote 
future. 

In the next place, the winter climate squeezes out 
for a part of the year the "tramp" and "swagger" 
class — the incorrigible loafer who takes no pains to 
provide a roof for himself, and who poses as unemployed 
while really unwilling to work. For nine months of 
the year, in most parts of Australia, a man of this 
type can sleep without discomfort under the open 
sky ; there are nearly nine months in Canada when 
some provision for shelter is a necessity. The advan- 
tages of a mild climate are doubtless many, and one is 
more conscious of the luxury of easy living in Australia ; 
a climate like that of Canada, severe for lengthened 
periods even while it is exhilarating, has merits which, 
though less obvious, are far-reaching in their influence 
on national character. It drives men back on home 
life and on work ; it teaches foresight ; it cures or kills 
the shiftless and improvident ; history shows that in 



214 The Great Dominion chap. 

the long run it has made strong races. It certainly 
saves Canada from a class which everywhere does harm 
to genuine industrial improvement. The Canadian 
winter exercises upon the tramp a silent but well-nigh 
irresistible persuasion to shift to a warmer latitude. 
It is a permanent barrier to the influx- of weaker races. 
It is a fundamental political and social advantage 
which the Dominion enjoys over the United States, 
where the gradual and inevitable spread of a black 
zone across the South, and the increasing attraction 
of the warm Middle States for the races of Southern 
Europe, infinitely complicate the processes of national 
development, and qualify the undoubted industrial 
advantage of varied production. 

In what has been said one speaks chiefly of the 
country, but even in the towns there has hitherto 
been little labour agitation. The inclination to drift 
from country to city life is noticeable in Canada as 
elsewhere, but unhealthy pressure towards the centres 
has not as yet become serious, and there is little 
sympathy with an unemployed class created by such 
a tendency. Till a man has tried what he can do on 
the land, he is not, even in the cities, thought to have 
much right to grumble or demand help from private 
charity or from the State. 

Canada has a still further safeguard against labour 
troubles in the neighbourhood of the United States. 
If a man is not suited with the work and wages he 
gets in his own country, he can go to another close 
at hand. The extent to which the French Canadian 



x Labour and Political Tendencies 215 

of Quebec thus migrates in order to find a market 
for his labour as a factory hand has been before 
referred to. 

While the States in this way serve as a safety-valve 
for labour questions to the Dominion, it must be 
confessed that they have in past years drawn from 
Eastern Canada a great deal of material which it would 
gladly have retained. This so-called " exodus " has 
undoubtedly retarded the growth of the Dominion, and 
has been a fiercely discussed question in Canadian 
politics. One of the chief grounds on which protec- 
tion, or, as it was called, the "national policy," won 
favour in Canada was the belief that the development 
of manufactures, by creating a variety of industry, 
would retain in the country many who were going 
away. This, to a certain extent, it has done. The 
opening up of the North West has also contributed 
to divert this flow of population westward, and will do 
so more in the future. Still, a limited migration to 
the States goes on, and is likely to do so. It is the 
natural penalty which Canada pays for being a 
northern country with those rigorous conditions of 
life which develop a strong type of character and 
physique. She is, in fact, repeating the experience of 
Scotland and New England. A climate which tends 
to produce a hardy race, a Puritan turn of mind which 
gives moral strenuousness, good schools, the leisure of 
winter for thought and study — all these tend to 
produce men likly to go abroad to win their way by 
their wits. The Anglo-Saxon element of the United 



2i6 The Great Dominion chap. 



States, deluged as it is by a foreign population chiefly 
of the labouring class, and lacking many of the moral 
qualities which give the native American his superi- 
ority, gladly turns to Canada for a higher class of 
workers. Young men raised on Canadian farms and 
educated in Canadian schools and colleges are 
paid high wages, and everywhere rise to position of 
trust as railway and telegraph managers, as clerks, 
foremen, or organizers of industry in a hundred forms ; 
the more highly trained, as teachers, professors, and 
journalists. Women obtain highly remunerative em- 
ployment as matrons or nurses in hospitals and other 
institutions where a good physique and high intelligence 
are essential. 

Only the opening of large fields of enterprise or the 
growth of great and wealthy centres, such as everywhere 
attract special ability, can prevent migration of this kind. 
This exodus of talent and energy is, therefore, likely 
to be continuous, and to extend to other countries as 
well as to the United States. It is fostered by the educa- 
tional advantages everywhere within reach. On educa- 
tion almost every province of the Dominion spends 
sums exceedingly large when compared with the whole 
amount of revenue. The free school is everywhere, 
and the system extends in most of the provinces from 
the elementary grades up through the secondary 
schools to the door of the university. But the free 
school in Canada is not like the free school of Eng- 
land — practically a gift from the rich who make no 
use of it to the poor who do. The Canadian free 



x Labour and Political Tendencies 217 

school is paid for by all classes and is used by all • 
is, in fact, a method of social co-operation for obtain- 
ing the best educational results with the least waste 
of force. 

Excellent results are obtained and great public spirit 
is shown in the maintenance of good schools, consider- 
ing that in fixing expenditure much is left to be 
decided by public sentiment in each province and 
each school district. Government does not, as in 
Australia, maintain schools; it gives assistance on a 
scale graduated to the amount of local effort, and 
exercises a general superintendence. On the whole, 
the plan is probably the most efficient for a common 
school system, and in Canada it works well. It must 
be said that the not uncommon mistake is made of 
spending money more liberally on machinery than upon 
men. But educational appliances are very good. In 
the country towns the schoolhouses are almost invari- 
ably among the finest public buildings, the class rooms 
are large, the sanitary arrangements of the best. In most 
of the cities the grading and organization of the schools 
are very complete, their danger perhaps lying in that 
excess of organization which tends to make teaching 
mechanical. In rural districts the village school forms 
no small part of the social system. In the Far West, 
as new areas are surveyed for settlement, provision is 
from the first made for education by setting aside 
certain sections of land in each township for school 
purposes. In newly opened districts, of course, the 
difficulty for the first generation of settlers lies in the 



218 The Great Dominion chap. 

sparseness of population, but wherever a few children 
can be got together the means are provided for 
establishing a school. All towns of any size have good 
secondary schools. There is, therefore, no good reason 
why every Canadian child should not receive a fair 
education, or, if he has ability and perseverance, a really 
good one. The long winter lends itself to mental 
improvement. The lull in farm work leaves the child- 
ren of the family comparatively free, and it is at this 
season that the country schools are full. The transi- 
tion from the best country schools to the university is 
not difficult, and for poor students is often bridged over 
by a period of teaching in the common schools com- 
bined with study. The scale of college expense is 
more on the level of what obtains in Scottish than 
in English universities, though it has risen during 
the last few years. 

University education is making rapid strides, partly 
by means of public funds, but much more by private 
benefactions. The readiness shown by wealth to 
support higher educational work is one of the most 
satisfactory features of Canadian life at the present 
time. When Sir William Dawson delivered his fare- 
well address as Principal of M'Gill College not long 
since, he was able to say that the gifts of the citizens 
of Montreal to that University during the previous four 
years alone had amounted to no less than a million and 
a half dollars. There have been very recent proofs that 
this stream of munificence has not been exhausted. 
Mr. John Henry Molson continues from time to time 



x Labour and Political Tendencies 219 

to add to the extremely generous support which has 
connected the name of his family with McGill from 
the earliest stages of its growth. The museum 
and library, presented before his death and endowed 
for permanent maintenance by the late Peter Red- 
path, form a noble monument to a large-hearted 
and patriotic liberality. Altogether Mr. Redpath's 
gifts must have amounted to more than half a million 
dollars. The claim that the engineering and physics 
departments of M'Gill are the most perfectly equipped 
in the world seems justified to any one who has in- 
spected the fine buildings in which they are installed. 
Both are the gift of another generous citizen of 
Montreal — Mr. W. C. Macdonald, who has spent upon 
them nearly a million dollars. The medical school has 
grown into importance, and retains numbers of students 
who once flocked to Edinburgh and to the colleges of the 
United States. This school especially has received 
very large support from Sir Donald Smith. The same 
benefactor has provided for the higher education of 
women in connection with the University by a splendid 
and separate endowment, and he is still carefully 
maturing plans to make the Avork of this department 
as perfect as possible. The standard of teaching and 
examination is the same as that for men, though the 
provisions for instruction are distinct. Montreal may 
well be proud of the public spirit which prevails 
among its merchant princes. Altogether the university 
has now seventy-four professors and lecturers, -with 



220 The Great Dominion chap. 

well nigh a thousand students in general or special 
subjects. 

Toronto University presents a different set of con- 
ditions. It depends chiefly for support upon the 
provincial revenues of Ontario, of whose altogether 
admirable school system it forms the crown. The fact 
that the college has this State aid seems, however, 
to have operated against large private benefactions. 
In comparing these two greatest universities in the 
Dominion it is interesting to note that the one which 
has depended chiefly upon private generosity within 
a single city has a more liberal endowment even than 
that which is supported by a wealthy province noted 
for its interest in education. Although the State has 
done so much for Toronto University, still some of its 
friends, and among them, I believe, members of the 
Faculty, hold the opinion that its position would be 
strengthened if it relied entirely upon voluntary sup- 
port. It is not easy to decide upon the truth of this 
view, though the facts I have mentioned give it some 
justification. Indications are not wanting in other 
parts of Canada that while the common and inter- 
mediate schools can safely depend for adequate support 
upon the tax-paying public, the higher learning in 
new countries as well as old must look for assist- 
ance to the enlightened liberality of the wealthy few. 
Often religious sentiment furnishes the motive now 
as in earlier centuries. The Presbyterian, Church of 
England, Baptist, and Methodist bodies all support 



Labour and Political Tendencies 221 



colleges — some of them very well endowed — in Ontario, 
and their position is so strong that an attempt to 
affiliate them with the provincial university has only 
been partially successful. 

Apart from State aid, the gifts made to a few of 
the leading colleges in the English provinces of the 
Dominion during the last ten years alone have 
amounted to at least $5,000,000. This estimate I had 
from Principal Grant, whose great and successful ex- 
ertions in building up Queen's University at Kingston 
entitle him to speak with authority upon the subject. 
It seems to me to represent a very striking degree 
of liberality in a country which has only very lately 
known large accumulations of private wealth. 

In French Canada higher education is mainly sup- 
ported from ecclesiastical funds, is almost exclusively 
under clerical direction, and is largely employed in 
training men for the service of the Koman Catholic 
Church. Laval University at Quebec has a long and 
not undistinguished history. A number of classical 
colleges scattered throughout the province are, for the 
most part, affiliated with Laval. 

In the Maritime provinces smaller colleges, some 
dependent on public and some on private and denomina- 
tional support, do exceedingly good work, though the' 
course of study is necessarily more limited. 

These institutions grew up under the impulse of a 
very genuine ardour for higher education at a time 
when the provinces were isolated, when communication 
was difficult, and when, therefore, each small community 



222 The Great Dominion chap. 

had to provide for its own wants. They have proved 
how much there is to be said for the work of the small 
college, with the better opportunity which it gives for 
attention to the development of the individual student, 
since they have, I think, turned out more men who 
have achieved distinction in public and intellectual life 
throughout the Dominion than the larger and more 
richly endowed universities. But with the increased 
facility of access to large centres the struggle for 
existence among these small colleges becomes more 
keen every day, and the necessity for some general 
reorganization of educational force among them is 
manifest. As things are, their ablest professors and 
students are apt to be drawn away to wider spheres, 
or, if not, they suffer from loyalty to local interests. 
There is abundance of excellent material and sufficient 
endowment of higher education in the Maritime pro- 
vinces to maintain an effective university. Oxford and 
Cambridge prove that it is possible to combine the 
advantages of the college which takes charge of a 
limited number of students with the opportunities of 
a great university. The problem before educational 
statesmanship in the Maritime provinces, of harmonizing 
local and denominational interests and prejudices, pre- 
sents difficulties, but should not be insoluble. 

Throughout Canada there is an increasing tendency 
for students to take a post-graduate course of study in 
British or Continental Universities. It is a tendency 
which deserves encouragement, for the greatest obstacle 
to the attainment of the highest educational results in 



Labour and Political Tendencies 



Canada, as in other young countries, is the haste to rush 
into professional and business life without allowing time 
for thorough mental training. Besides, contact with great 
and ancient centres of learning is the best of all correc- 
tives for provincialism in thought and literary effort. 

At Kingston the Dominion Government has estab- 
lished and maintains at considerable expense a college 
which gives a sound military training, and it is a note- 
worthy fact that in the few years since it was established 
nearly a hundred of its graduates have taken active 
service in the imperial army. It has been stated on 
the highest authority that in training and attainments 
they compare favourably with those turned out by the 
military colleges at home. 

The Imperial Government assigns each year, without 
further examination, a small number of commissions 
to students who have distinguished themselves at the 
college. The link in military employment thus being 
gradually formed between the Dominion and the Empire 
seems of some significance and of mutual advantage. 
Canada secures the benefit of a large field for the train- 
ing of its military students ; the imperial army has a 
widened area from which to draw material. 

I have dwelt at length upon the educational question, 
partly to show that intellectual has kept pace with 
material development, and partly to explain why it is 
that, beyond most of the other colonies of the Empire, 
the need of Canada is for hand-workers rather than 
head-workers. Of the latter the country produces 
within itself more than it can employ. The avenues to 



224 The Great Dominion chap. 



professional success are everywhere crowded by home- 
born and, except for very special work, home-trained 
men. As I have shown, they go abroad in considerable 
numbers, for work they cannot find at home. Canada 
must, I think, reconcile itself to this exodus, which is 
the outcome of natural conditions. It is not without 
its compensation in extending influence. Still, there 
are many who maintain that the tendency of things in 
Canada is to give literary education beyond the needs 
of the country ; that, while the professions are over- 
crowded, farms and the more practical avocations of 
life become neglected. 

It is therefore interesting to note another exceedingly 
practical direction which educational effort is taking. 
As I have said, the country is and will continue to be 
mainly agricultural. It is beginning to be recognized 
that in an age of extreme competition the farmer, like 
others, can only succeed by adopting the best and most 
scientific methods. A beginning, at least, is now being 
made in bringing scientific training and the results of 
scientific research within his reach. 

This work takes two different forms. At Guelph the 
Ontario Government has established an Agricultural 
College, with an efficient staff of professors. A large 
farm is attached to the college, so that provision is 
made for practical as well as theoretic instruction in 
farming during the three years' course for which the 
plan of study is arranged. The institution has been 
in operation for more than twenty years, and improve- 
ments have steadily been made, so that now the facilities 



x Labour and Political Tendencies 225 

afforded to the students of becoming familiar with 
all kinds of farm work seem to a visitor very com- 
plete. 

In addition to the ordinary work of field and garden, 
of laboratory and lecture room, a great variety of experi- 
ments in culture, the results of which are made public 
from time to time, are being carried on under the eyes of 
the students. Horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, and poultry of 
the leading breeds and varieties are reared, to illustrate 
the teaching of the college, and to give practice in 
methods of treatment. Class-rooms into which animals 
of all kinds can be freely introduced strike the observer 
as a novel part of college equipment, but among the 
most useful. 

Particular attention is paid to the department of 
dairying, and the lecture-rooms are furnished with all 
the best appliances for testing milk, for separating 
cream, and for butter and cheese making. A special 
short winter course, for dairy teaching exclusively, has 
been established, and has met with much success. Its 
classes are open to women as well as to men. 

The college has steadily grown in public favour, and 
has now no lack of students. All are expected to take 
a part in the farm work, and that this may be done 
the more cheerfully, and on equitable terms, arrange- 
ments are made by which students pay in part by their 
labour for their education. While the majority are 
Canadians, a good many have come in past years from 
the United Kingdom, and one asked with a good deal 
of interest how this system of combined field labour 

Q 



2^6 The Great Dominion chap. 



and education worked in the case of young Englishmen. 
The report was not altogether what one would wish. 
The type of young man from the United Kingdom 
whom his parents are most anxious to get settled on a 
Canadian farm does not easily take up the role of a 
field labourer, but rather expects to find an agricul- 
tural college something like an English public school. 
The alternation of study and physical labour is natur- 
ally not so pleasant as that of study and play. To the 
Canadian farmer's son the former is something like the 
normal experience of life, and so for him the college 
puts no special strain on prejudices and habits. A 
course at Guelph should serve admirably as an intro- 
duction for a young Englishman to a farming life in 
Canada, but if he cannot face the labouring conditions 
there it is a pretty reliable proof that he is not fitted 
for the life to which he looks forward. 

As the college can only receive a limited number of 
regular students, various means are taken to widen the 
sphere of its influence throughout the agricultural 
community. Farmers' excursions are arranged, to 
visit the college and inspect the practical work of the 
farm. Addresses on agricultural subjects are given, 
and the methods pursued and experiments carried on 
are explained to groups of the visitors by the heads of 
the various departments. No less than 9000 persons 
are reported as having thus visited the farm during the 
single month of June 1893. Again, at certain seasons 
of the year members of the college staff attend the 
meetings of farmers' institutes, to give lectures and 



x Labour and Political Tendencies 227 

take part in the discussions. These institutes are 
voluntarily established by the farmers in most of the 
counties of Ontario, and have a marked influence in 
stimulating thought on farming questions and intro- 
ducing improved methods of work. They are encour- 
aged by a small grant from the provincial revenues. 
The college also sends out competent men with 
travelling dairies to go into every part of the province, 
and thus brings instruction on an industry which 
has become of the utmost importance in Ontario 
almost to the farmer's door. It is found that 
young men attend the college in order to qualify 
themselves for undertaking the management of 
cheese and butter factories, so that the diffusion of 
the best methods through the instrumentality of the 
college thus becomes very general. The result of such 
work is best shown in the wonderful strides made in 
the cheese production of Ontario, and the exceptional 
position which Canadian cheese has gained in English 
markets during the last ten years. 

While Ontario has thus taken the lead in founding 
a college for farmers, the Dominion Government is 
carrying out on a larger scale another scheme with 
somewhat similar objects. For the last six years a 
large sum of money has been annually spent in organ- 
izing and maintaining a number of experimental farms 
at widely separated points across the continent. The 
Central Farm, from which the rest are directed, is 
in the vicinity of Ottawa. Of the other four, one is 
at Nappan, in Nova Scotia ; another in Brandon, in 

Q 2 



228 The Great Dominion 



CHAP. 



Manitoba ; the third at Indian Head, in the Qu'Appelle 
district ; and the fourth at Agassiz, in British Columbia. 
Climate and conditions extremely different, and repre- 
sentative of the characteristic areas of the country, are 
thus embraced in the operations of the farms. 

The establishment of these experimental centres by 
Government may perhaps best be described as an 
endowment of agricultural research. Where a country 
has so much staked on the prosperity of its farming 
classes as has Canada, money could not be better spent, 
and it was satisfactory to be told that no sums were 
more cheerfully voted by Parliament than the grants 
required for this purpose. 

No visitor to Ottawa should miss the opportunity of 
seeing the work that is going on at the central farm 
near that city, under the direction of Professor Saunders 
and his able corps of assistants. Experiments and 
investigations of the most varied kinds are being made 
in agriculture, horticulture, and arboriculture, under the 
direction of a specialist in each. A system of exchange 
has been established with foreign countries, and the 
adaptability to the Canadian climate of plants and 
seeds thus obtained, especially from northern lati- 
tudes, is carefully tested. Farmers are encouraged 
to correspond with the heads of the various depart- 
ments, and submit to them their special diffi- 
culties. Any farmer is free to forward seeds to the 
Central Farm, where arrangements are made for testing 
and giving private reports upon their vitality. The 
chemical department receives samples of soils, natural 



x Labour and Political Tendencies 229 

manures, &c, analyzes them, and gives advice about 
their treatment or use. In the botanical and entomo- 
logical department plant diseases, noxious weeds, and 
injurious insects are carefully studied ; communications 
are received concerning them ; private advice is given 
or public bulletins are issued about the best methods 
of dealing with them. 

Numerous experiments in cross fertilizing are con- 
stantly carried on, and new varieties of promise thus 
procured are widely distributed among farmers for 
further trial. In 1893 more than 20,000 samples of 
choice varieties of cereals in three-pound packages 
were distributed gratis to all applicants. Great 
quantities of tree seeds, with seedling forest trees and 
cuttings, have also been distributed, and especially in 
the North- West, with a view to encourage tree-growing 
on the prairies. 

Most of the problems which confront the farmer in 
dealing with cattle, sheep, swine, and poultry are being 
studied, and the very full and accurate reports of the 
heads of departments on their various experiments in 
rearing and fattening stock, or combating disease, are 
scattered broadcast throughout the farming com- 
munity. The Agriculturist of the the Central Farm, 
Mr. J. W. Robertson, is also Dairy Commissioner for 
the Dominion, and it is not too much to say that, by 
his energy and enthusiasm, he has begun to organize 
the dairying industry in the Maritime provinces on a 
new basis. 

At the branch farms special attention is given to 



230 The Great Dominion chap. 



those agricultural problems which most particularly 
affect the particular localities. On the two prairie 
stations the testing of varieties of trees suited for the 
prairies, and of cereals adapted to the short northern 
summer, receives special attention. In British Columbia 
hundreds of varieties of fruit are being tested, and 
the same department receives special care in Nova 
Scotia. 

At all the experimental centres the country people 
of the neighbourhood are encouraged to visit the 
farms, and every facility is given them to observe the 
methods pursued and the progress of experiments. 
At Ottawa one found that large picnics to the farm, 
varied during the day by lectures from the specialists 
on the staff, had become a favourite farmers' outing. 

Educational effort such as I have described cannot 
but assist the farmer in economizing force and making 
the most of his opportunities. Its value, however, 
lies not merely in the improvement of agriculture, but 
in the interest added to the farmer's life by giving it 
a scientific and intellectual side. To make farm life 
attractive should surely be one of the aims of an age 
perplexed by the problems which have arisen out of 
an overgrown city population. The steps being taken 
in Canada to attain this end seem practical and emin- 
ently noteworthy. 

We may now turn to another line of inquiry. 

The spirit and tendencies of political life in the 
greatest colony of the Empire must always be interest- 
ing to British people. That interest will necessarily 



x Labour and Political Tendencies 231 

increase and become more practical as time goes on. 
Unobtrusively and almost unconsciously, through the 
sheer weight of her concern in national affairs, 
Canada's influence is making itself felt in imperial 
councils. Some time since, in private conversation, 
Lord Rosebery remarked that no change had more 
struck him in English political life during the last ten 
years than the new status which Canadians had 
obtained in this country, and the ready way in which 
Canadian advice was accepted in matters of great 
imperial importance by statesmen of all parties. 

The change is only natural. The Dominion includes 
nearly forty per cent, of the land area of the Empire. Its 
ports, harbour defences, and coal supplies must always 
constitute considerable elements in determining the 
maritime strength of British people on the Atlantic 
and Pacific coasts of America. It lies midway between 
Europe and Asia, and is in easy touch with both. It is 
in close international relation with the other half of the 
American continent. Its population of five milions is 
double that of the United States when they became 
independent, and greater than that of the England of 
Elizabeth's time. Whether its voice, now that of a 
united people, not of detached colonies, is heard in 
imperial questions by courtesy as at present, or by 
representation on defined principle as will probably 
come in time, should the unity of the Empire be main- 
tained, such a State must necessarily have increasing 
weight in national and international discussions. It is 
manifestly of the utmost importance to the Empire 



232 The Great Dominion chap. 

that public opinion in the Dominion, situated as it is> 
should be sober, reasonable, and conscious of its 
responsibilities ; that political evolution should proceed 
on sound and healthy lines. So far, Canadian states- 
manship has justified the greater attention paid to it 
on large questions of imperial policy. Results such as 
those achieved at the Halifax and Behring Sea arbi- 
trations are the best proofs of this. Both were the out- 
come of a firm stand taken by Canada in regard to 
what she thought her rights; both were conducted 
mainly on Canadian advice ; and in each case an 
impartial tribunal maintained the Canadian as against 
the American contention. 

In many ways Canada holds a curious middle 
position in political thought between Great Britain and 
the United States. At first sight it might appear that 
the impact of so immense a community as the United 
States would entirely dominate Canadian lines of growth 
in politics and social life, and determine their ten- 
dencies. But this is very far from being the case. 
Canada has retained a very distinct individuality of its 
own. This is true of the greater and English-speaking 
part, as well as of that French Canada which might be 
expected to retain its peculiarities of thought and 
institution. The circumstances under which the lead- 
ing provinces of Canada were founded, about the time 
of, or shortly after, the American Revolution, created a 
line of demarcation between the two countries Avhich 
never has been, and probably never will be, entirely 
obliterated. The feelings with which the United 



x Labour and Political Tendencies 233 

Empire Loyalists came to Canada between 1776 and 
1783 were not such as favoured the adoption 
of the political and social ideals of the States from 
which they had been driven out. American action 
in the war of 1812 deepened the line of separa- 
tion. While the United States cherish the recollec- 
tion of Lexington and Bunker's Hill, Yorktown and 
Saratoga, as memorials of a struggle against what they 
thought was oppression, Canada finds the record of 
her heroic period in spots like Queenstown Heights, 
Lundy's Lane, Chateauguay, and other places where 
stern and successful resistance was made to high-handed 
American aggression. The circumstances in the one 
case are as much calculated to inspire patriotic feelings 
as in the other. Temporary difficulties, such as those 
which occurred at the time of the Trent affair, in the 
Fenian invasion of 1866, in the various boundary 
disputes, and the policy of commercial isolation which 
has prevailed of late years, have constantly tended to 
turn Canada in directions of its own, and given it the 
stamp of individuality. That stamp it will certainly 
retain. 

But, while living its own life, the Dominion grows 
more cordial with its great neighbour as the latter 
learns to respect it. 

At the point which they have now reached, the 
business of Canada and the United States is to live on 
friendly terms with each other, and there is little to 
prevent them from doing so, given common honesty of 
dealing and respect for each other's rights. The great 



234 The Great Dominion chap. 



boundary questions have been settled, with the excep- 
tion of that in Alaska, and here the necessary surveys 
are now being carried harmoniously forward. Other 
points of dispute have been cleared away. Mr. Goldwin 
Smith always assumes that Canada's presence as a part 
of the British Empire on the American continent is a 
standing irritation to the United States. Possibly it is 
to a baser element in the United States, but that is not 
a thing to which a free people should pander. It is 
much more likely that Canada, in the middle ground 
that it occupies, will prove to be the solvent which 
will unite in sympathy and on honourable terms the 
two great nations with which she is allied in race and 
language. Certainly it is in dealing with Canadian 
questions that these nations have made the greatest 
advance in the matter of national arbitration. In 
framing her system Canada took many hints from the 
United States. In the practical work of government 
the United States might well take many lessons from 
Canada. In maintaining a high respect for the law 
and the judicial office, in the management of native 
races, in organizing a non-political Civil Service, in the 
unification of marriage laws, to mention a few special 
points, the greater success of the smaller and younger 
federation has been marked, and is generally admitted. 
Doubtless much has yet to be done for the complete 
purification of public life in Canada, but in this too 
no impartial observer can doubt that the smaller State 
has the better record. The professional politician has 
no such large and accepted place as in the United 



x Labour and Political Tendencies 235 

States, and the severest critic of Canadian politics has 
admitted that the people as a whole are sound. The 
strongest Government that the Dominion ever knew 
was swept from power merely on a suspicion that 
public trusts were being loosely dealt with. A strong 
belief in the public mind that the late Sir John 
Thompson was a man bent on ruling the country 
honestly, constituted one of the chief elements in his 
political strength. The same is true of Mr. Laurier, 
the Liberal leader. 

On the other hand, by applying the federal principle of 
government on a great scale while keeping the system 
in harmony with British institutions, Canada must 
not be thought of as becoming Americanized, but as 
making a most important addition to the political 
experience of the Empire. There is no sufficient 
ground for doubting the success of the experiment. 
Friction there has been, but nothing that for a moment 
can be compared with what the United States had to 
deal with in the earlier years of the Union; nothing 
that has not yielded to judicious treatment. Friction 
there will doubtless still be, but the principle of 
union has now passed through the critical stage, and 
no single province would be allowed to violate the 
federal compact. 

The success of federalism in the Dominion and the 
increased weight it has given to Canada cannot but 
have far-reaching results upon other parts of the 
Empire. It will forward the idea of unity in Australia 
and South Africa, and point the way to its successful 



2^6 The Great Dominion chap. 



o 



adoption. It may suggest the lines of further political 
development for the Empire. It is not unlikely to 
have considerable effect even upon political ideas in 
the United States. The Dominion is now illustrating 
on the American continent the admitted fact that the 
popular will under the British system works much more 
rapidly and effectively in a democracy which is not a 
republic than in one that is. 

But while this first British application of the federal 
idea has been a distinct success, there have been many 
lessons to learn. There is ground for the opinion that 
since confederation Canada has been over-governed 
The weak point of the system in this respect has mani- 
festly been in the provincial Legislatures. 

Confederation transferred to the Federal Parliament 
very extensive powers previously exercised by the pro- 
vinces, and particularly powers which influence vital 
constitutional change. In this the Canadian system 
goes far beyond the example of the United States. 
While the importance of the local Legislatures was thus 
lessened, the machinery of government was left much 
as before, in deference to provincial feeling, which at first 
resisted any loss of prestige, even when it was artificial. 
This machinery has proved too complicated and expen- 
sive, especially in the smaller provinces. 

Practical communities soon adapt themselves to new 
conditions, and all the English-speaking provinces except 
Nova Scotia, where some resistance is still offered, have 
abolished their Upper Chambers. When the power to 
make grave constitutional amendment has been removed 



Labour and Political Tendencies 237 



from the sphere of legislation, and where the work to 
be done is mainly administrative, the check furnished 
by an Upper House is no longer needed. This is the 
explanation of the change which has taken place in the 
direction of a single Chamber for provincial Legislatures. 

There would be the strongest objection to doing 
away with the Upper House in the Federal Parliament, 
though there the nominated Chamber has never been a 
strong force in politics — perhaps not so strong as the 
framers of the Constitution expected or intended. 
The tendency will be to strengthen rather than to 
abolish it. 

It is likely that still further means will be found to 
reduce the complexity of the governing machinery in 
the smaller provinces. The most practicable reform 
seems to be the legislative union of the maritime pro- 
vinces — Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince 
Edward Island. A regular system of government by 
Ministries based on party lines tends to become absurd 
when applied to such small constituencies, and ends by 
personal considerations and mere wire-pulling taking 
the place of anything that can be dignified by the name 
of policy. 

Until some substitute has been found for government 
by party the best remedy for the pettiness of provincial 
politics seems to lie in widening the constituency as far 
as possible. There seems to be no good reason why 
a single Governor, Legislature and Civil Service should 
not serve for the Maritime provinces. Their popula- 
tion, when united, would not be equal to that of Ontario* 



238 The Great Dominion chap. 

The interests which have grown up around the small 
capitals are now the chief obstacles to this useful 
change, which will probably come in time. 

On some general questions of political tendency the 
Dominion presents striking contrasts to Australia. 
The centralization of government which prevails in 
most of the colonies of Australia, and which apparently 
tends to increase on lines of State interference, would 
not, in the present state of public opinion, meet with 
much sympathy in Canada. I doubt if in any country 
there is so complete a devolution of the powers and 
responsibilities of government upon the right shoulders, 
all the way up through the school district, the parish, 
the county or city municipality, and the province to 
the Federal Government, as in most of the English- 
speaking provinces of the Dominion. The rural 
municipality, conterminous with the county, has espe- 
cially been organized with marked success. In this 
Ontario led the way ; the example has been closely 
followed in New Brunswick and other provinces. It is 
almost universally found that the men selected represent 
the most solid and reliable portions of the farming and 
trading community ; they need no guidance of an upper 
and specially educated class as in the English county 
council ; they form simple but dignified consultative 
bodies ; their county administration is usually marked 
by economy and care. The range of political training, 
from the district school committee to the Dominion 
Parliament, is thus rendered very complete. If Canadians 
are ever badly governed it is their own fault, certainly 



x Labour and Political Tendencies 239 

not that of the completely free and representative 
system under which their local affairs are managed. 

Public opinion in Canada, again, has gone entirely 
against the State control of railways which has found 
favour in Australia. Railway enterprise has "been 
lavishly subsidized, the greater part of the federal and 
provincial debts having been incurred in this way ; but 
the people have deliberately preferred to hand over the 
assisted railways to private control. There is a deep 
sense of the danger to constitutional government in 
unnecessarily burdening the legislative powers with 
complicated administration, with the control of vast 
expenditure, and with the exercise of extensive patron- 
age. It is also believed that a community derives 
great advantages, through the increased self-reliance 
of the individual, from holding out the fullest induce- 
ments and giving the widest possible scope to private 
energy. The Intercolonial system, embracing about 
1,100 miles of railway, is the only line now under public 
control. It was built and is maintained as a part 
of the confederation compact, but its State management 
is very widely regarded as a necessary evil. Whether 
Australian or Canadian tendencies in the particulars 
I have mentioned represent the more healthy and 
useful forms of political development would form an 
interesting study, and about it, no doubt, opinions 
would greatly differ. They illustrate the wide range 
of political experience furnished by a large Empire. 

Statesmen who wish to strengthen the political tie 
between Canada and the motherland need not think 



240 The Great Dominion chap. 

of doing so by other than very practical methods. When 
Lord Carrington returned from Australia, he suggested, 
if I am not mistaken, that such an end might there 
be attained by the extension to colonists of K.C.B., 
G.C.B., or some such titular distinctions, in addition to 
the ordinary K.C.M.G. of colonial knighthood. I doubt 
if he is right about Australia ; I am quite sure that 
new links of connexion must take more practical forms 
so far as Canada is concerned. Some regard the con- 
ferring of a peerage and a baronetcy or two upon 
well-known Canadians as a move in the right direction, 
arguing that the highest honours of the Empire should 
be open to all British subjects. But there is absolutely 
no sympathy with the establishment of an hereditary 
nobility or aristocracy on Canadian soil. I think I am 
right in saying that the objection to it is marked. 
Curiously enough, this is not connected with any theoreti- 
cal objection to a House of Lords at the centre of the 
Empire, where a Chamber, in part at least hereditary, 
is considered more congruous with the existing order 
of things. There is little popular dislike, however, 
to the conferring or acceptance of ordinary imperial 
honours, provided the subjects be worthy. On the 
whole the knighthoods given in Canada have, with a few 
exceptions, been conferred on those whom Canadians 
themselves would select for honour, and are practically 
ratifications of popular opinion. In many cases the 
honour has been declined. 

There is one kind of life peerage, practical and useful, 
and carrying with it profound meaning, which could, 



x Labour and Political Tendencies 241 

when the time is ripe, be bestowed with telling effect 
in Canada. A great Canadian lawyer raised to the 
peerage for life, and sitting on the Judicial Committee 
of the Privy Council, would form a real and practical 
bond, honourable to the colony and useful to the Empire. 
It need not be doubted that Canada will be prepared 
to furnish men of adequate calibre when they are 
needed. To say nothing of English Canada, more tha'n 
one Chief Justice of Quebec, whose general legal ability 
and special knowledge of French law would be a dis- 
tinct addition to the judicial resources of the House 
of Lords, would have filled the position with dignity 
and success. Such an appointment would profoundly 
affect French imagination. The name of Sir John 
Thompson was, before his lamented death, sometimes 
mentioned in connection with such an appointment, 
and it was one for which he was admirably qualified. 
It is quite possible that in other directions life peerages 
might be made representative of great Canadian in- 
terests, and so act as genuine bonds of union. Admis- 
sion to the Privy Council, especially if connected with 
actual consultative functions, would probably prove a 
popular and practical link of closer connexion and a 
useful direction for political development. That the 
official representative from time to time in London of 
five millions of British people, who control the destinies 
of half a continent, should ex officio be of the Privy 
Council of the Empire seems like the dictate of political 
common-sense. The establishment of such a precedent 
would be accepted in the Dominion as a decisive recog- 

R 



242 The Great Dominion chap. 



nition of the growing importance attached to Canadian 
opinion. 

One often hears regrets expressed in England that 
the growth of the Dominion has not been more rapid. 
It is true that Canada has grown slowly when compared 
with the sudden expansion of the Western States, or 
with Australia during the period of its greatest pros- 
perity. Unthinking people attribute this exclusively 
to the more rigorous climate and the hard conditions of 
life, but the reasons are really various. The circum- 
stances of Australian growth after the discovery of gold 
in 1851, and also when the colonies were spending 
large sums of borrowed money in assisted emigration, 
were essentially abnormal. During the period, again, 
when the American West filled up most rapidly, wheat 
was bringing an exceptionally high price. It was the 
farmer's golden age. Now he has fallen on his age of 
iron. Never in the memory of man has wheat been so 
low as since the opening of the wheat areas of the 
North- West. In European countries, moreover, the 
class from which the best emigrants were chiefly drawn 
has now been much reduced in numbers through the 
depression of agriculture, the introduction of farming 
machinery, and the transfer of the people to an artisan 
life in towns. These and many other like considera- 
tions must be kept in mind. 

But it is a very superficial view to regard the slow 
growth of the Dominion as a disadvantage to the 
country. There are many compensations, and the gain 
has probably been greater than the loss. Law and 



x Labour and Political Tendencies 243 

social order have always maintained their supremacy. 
The native Canadian and the British elements have 
never been swamped by an alien population untrained 
to citizenship. There has been no unnatural inflation, 
to be followed by a corresponding depression, no revolt 
of labour, no excessive concentration of population, with 
the evils which follow in its train. 

The best friends of Canada are perhaps those who 
are far-sighted enough to prefer that her growth should 
still not be too rapid for her powers of healthy assimila- 
tion. It is impossible to sympathize with the feverish 
haste shown in the Western States to reproduce within 
a single generation in a new country the social con- 
ditions of crowded Europe, to reckon national progress 
by numbers rather than by quality and soundness of 
organization. It may fairly be claimed for Canada that 
in her somewhat slow development political training 
and social organization have kept pace with material 
growth. 

All these are fitting her to take a place of increasing 
influence in the Empire to which she belongs. That it 
is her highest interest and the prevailing wish of her 
people to maintain connexion with that Empire is one 
of the conclusions to which my study of the country 
has led me. That she cannot be separated from the 
Empire without results incalculably hazardous to the 
maintenance of the national position of British people 
is another. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Aberdeen, Lord, estate in British 
Columbia, 169 

Acadians, 137, 147, 148 

Agassiz, experimental farm at, 
228 

Agriculture, 19-25, et seq. 

Agricultural College, 224-7 

Alaska, 234 

Alberta, 30, 31, 34 

Alkali land, 12 

Annexation, objection to, 185 ; 
sometimes discussed, 186 ; any 
feeling in favour of, now gone, 
202, 203 

Apples, export of, from Ontario, 
95 ; from Nova Scotia, 113 ; 
to Britain and United States, 
189 ; bad packing of, 95, 192 

Athabasca River, 5, 176, 182 

Australia, British Columbian 
timber used in, 166 ; trade 
with, 197, 207 ; Canadian ten- 
dencies contrasted with those 
of, 238, 239 ; growth of, 242 

Banff, 7 

Barley, markets for, 194, 195 

Barren grounds, 177 

Beaver, 178, 179 

Bedford Basin, 102 

Behring Sea, 81 ; arbitration, 232 

Bermuda, cable connection with 

Halifax, 102 
Boundary, southern of Canada, 

3 ; Alaska, 234 
Bourinot, Dr., 107 



Brandon, 14 ; railway rates at, 
56 ; experimental farm at, 227 

Brassey, Lord, colonisation estate, 
15 ; decides to encourage small 
farms, 17 ; experience in pro- 
moting colonisation, 35 

British Columbia, 6, 157-172 ; not 
agricultural, 161, 162 ; mineral 
wealth, 163-5 ; fisheries of, 
162, 5 ; timber of, 166-167 ; coal 
of, 78-84 ; fruit and hops, 168 

Brown, George, 106 

Buffalo, 179 

Butter, 97, 192 

Calgary, 26, 30, 33, 40 

Canadian Pacific Railway, 46-72 ; 
mileage of, 46 ; advantage over 
other trans- continental lines, 
47 ; steamship connections of, 

48, 66-7 ; bridges of, 49 ; en- 
courages many enterprises, 

49, 50 ; early difficulties of, 53 ; 
monopoly of transportation in 
North- West, 55-61 ; position 
of in Eastern Canada, 61-4 ; 
proposal to hand over Inter- 
colonial Railway to, 64-68 ; 
use of as naval and military 
route, 69-71 

Canal system, 120 ; expenditure 
upon, 121 ; freight carried by, 
121 ; SaultSte. Marie, 121, 122 

Cape Breton, 74-6 

Carman, Bliss, 108 

Caron, Sir Adolphe, 142 



248 



Index 



Cartier, Sir George, 134 

Cattle trade, 30, 31, 188 

Chateauguay, 233 

Cheese, largest exports from 
Ontario and Quebec, 97, 191 ; 
sent to United Kingdom, 188, 
190, 191 

Chignecto Ship Railway, 123 

China, 47,48 

Chinese in Canada, 170 

Climate, 3 ; compensations for 
cold, 24, 25, 211, 212 ; squeezes 
out inefficient, and keeps out 
weak races, 213, 214 

Coal, relation of to commerce and 
imperial defence, 73-77,87, 88 ; 
in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, 
74-78 ; in British Columbia, 
78-84 ; on the prairies, 85-87 ; 
in New Brunswick, 78 ; anthra* 
cite near Banff, 82-3 ; smoke- 
less, at Canmore, 83 ; market 
for in United States, 194 

Cochrane ranch, 30 

Coke, 83, 84 (note) 

Colonist cars, 50 

Crow's Nest Pass, 48 

Cunard, Samuel, 108 

Dakota, 41 

Dawson, Dr. G. M., 5, 86, 107, 
176 

Dawson, Sir Wm., 107, 218 

Edmonton, 28, 29, 40, 87 

Education, 216-226 

Eggs, export of, to United States 
and United Kingdom, 195 

Elevators, 14 ; waste in, 22 

Emigration, Icelandic, 9 ; Scot- 
tish, 13 ; from United States, 
40 ; young Englishmen of better 
classes not always suited for, 
36, 226 ; kind of required in 
North-West, 34 ; in Canada 
generally, 210 

Esquimalt, 80, 169 

Estevan, 13, 86 



Exodus to United States, 129, 

215, 216, 224 
Experimental farms, 227-23 

Fall ploughing, necessity for, 
20 ; compared with summer 
fallowing, 19 

Farms, on a large scale, 16, 17 ; 
small preferable, 17 ; best acre- 
age for, 18, 19 ; from forest 
land, 115, 116 ; partly im- 
proved, 117, 119 

Fish, where exported to, 195 

Fisheries, of Eastern Canada, 109- 
110 ; of British Columbia, 165 

Fleming, Sandford, 53 

Fort William, 62 

Foster, Hon. George, E., 107 

Frechette, Louis, Article in 
Forum, 129 

Fredericton, 117 

French, in Quebec, 128 ; in Mani- 
toba and North- West, 139 ; in 
Ontario, 139 ; Acadian, 147 ; 
language, 139-143 

Frost, 12, 20, 24 

Fruitgrowing, 93-96, 113 

Fundy, Bay of, 4, 112 

Fur, carriage of, 6 ; country, 
173-183 ; permanence and 
quality of supply, 178 

Galt, Sir Alexander, 106 

Gold, 109, 163 

Grand Trunk Railway, 49 (note), 

63 
Grant, Rev. Principal, 57, 107 
Guelph Agricultural College, 224 

Habitant, 129, 131, 138, 140; 
immobility of, 144, 145 ; good 
fisherman and lumberman, but 
bad farmer, 149-150 

Hail and hail insurance, 12 

Haliburton, Judge, 109 

Halifax, 74, 101, 102 

Hamilton, 92, 100 



Index 



249 



Harrison, President, refers to 
Canadian Pacific Railway, 47 ; 
to Ship Canal, 62 ; trade ani- 
mosity of, 196 

Horses, ranch, 31 ; exports to 
Britain, 189 

Howe, Joseph, 109 

Hudson's Bay, 4, 174; route to 
Europe, 182-183 

Hudson's Bay Company, 178, 179, 
180-183 

Iceland, emigrants from, to 

North-West, 9 
Icelanders, 35, 39 
Imperial titles in Canada, 240 
Indian Head, experimental farm 

at, 228 
Institutes, farmers', 226, 227 
Intercolonial Railway, 64, 65-67, 

68, 239 
Irrigation. 27, 49 



Jewish colonies, 35 
Judicial Committee of Privy 
Council, 241 

Ketchum, H. G. C, 124 
Kingston, 92, 100, 117 
Kootenay, 164, 193 

Labour, conditions of, 210 ; does 

not depress, 211 ; problems not 

prominent, 212-215 
Labrador, 177, 182 
Lachine Bridge over St. Lawrence, 

49 (note) 
Latitude, comparative, of points 

in Canada, 3 
Laurier, Hon. Wilfrid, 135, 142, 

235 
Lethbridge, coal, 85-86, 194, 196 
London, 92, 100 
Louisburg, 74, 76, 103 
Loyalists, United Empire, Toronto 

founded by, 99, 233 
Lundy's Lane, 233 



Macdonald, Sir John, 101, 106 

Macdonald, Mr. W. C, gifts to 
McGill College, 219 

Mackenzie, Alexander, 106 

Mackenzie River, 5, 176, 182 

Manitoba, comparative latitude 
of, 3, 9, 24 

Manufactures, in Ontario, 97, 98 ; 
of iron, 110; of cotton and 
woollen, 205, 206 

Maritime Provinces, 101 ; indus- 
trial position of, 103, 104 ; in- 
fluence in Dominion affairs of, 
106 ; agricultural prospects, 
111, 112 ; climate of, 114 ; im- 
proved farms in the, 118, 119 ; 
legislative union of, 237 

McCarthy, Mr. d'Alton, 204 

McGill College, 218, 219 

McKinley tariff, 195-197 

Mercier, Mr. 135, 148 

Military College, 223 

Mixed farming, arguments for, 
21; objection of North- Western 
farmer to, 23 

Molson, Mr. J. H., gifts to McGill 
College, 218 

Montreal, 151-153 ; public spirit 
of its wealthy men, 219 

Mormon enterprise in Southern 
Alberta, 42 

Muskoka, 99 

Musk Ox, 177 

Nanaimo, 79, 80, 81 

Nappan, experimental farm at, 
227 

Navigation, inland, 4, 5 ; limita- 
tion to, 6 

Nelson River, 5 

New Brunswick, marsh and inter- 
vale lands of, 112, 113 ; coal in, 
78 ; business conditions of, 105, 
106 ; forest land of, 115, 116 

Newcomb, Professor Simon, 108 

New Glasgow, 110 

Niagara Peninsula, 93-96 

Nickel, 193 



250 



Index 



North- West, relation to rest of 
Canada, 5 ; general considera- 
tion of, 9-45 

Nova Scotia, coal in, 74-78 ; as 
part of Maritime Provinces, 
101-119 ; fruit growing in, 113; 
iron ores of, 110; best forest 
lands taken up, 115 

O'Brien, Archbishop, 108 
Ontario, 90-101 ; forest land of, 

116; agricultural college of, 

224-226 
Ottawa, 100, 101 

Pacific Coast, 6 ; length of coast 
line, 7 

Pacific Ocean, Canadian steam- 
ship lines on, 172 

Peace River, 5, 29 

Perley, Senator, opinion on North- 
western farming, 19 

Petersen, P. A., C.E., 49 (note) 

Petroleum, in Ontario, 91 ; in 
Northern Canada, 176 

Pork, wheat fed, 21, 22 ; surplus 
sent to United Kingdom, 188 

Poultry, trade with the United 
Kingdom, 190 

Prairies, impression of vastness 
from, 11 ; variety of land on, 
12 ; cultivation of, 15 ; undu- 
lating and partly wooded, 26 

Premium system, 38, 39 

Prince Albert, 28 

Prince Edward Island, 113 

Privy Council, 24, 241 

Protection, 199-204 

Qu'Appelle, 34 

Quebec, 127-156 ; population and 
representation of, in parliament, 

128 ; small emigration to, from 
France, 129 ; exodus from, 

129 ; repatriation and settle- 
ment, 149 

Quebec, city of, 153-155 
Queenstown Heights, 233 



Ranching, 30, 31, 44 
Rand, Dr. T. H., 107 
Redpath, Mr. Peter, gifts to 

McGill College, 219 
Red River, 4 
Regina, 28, 33 
Roberts, Charles, 108 
Robertson, Mr. J. W., Dairy 

Commissioner for Dominion, 

229 
Rosebery, Lord, 231 
Rupert, Prince, first Governor of 

Hudson's Bay Company, 180 

San Francisco obtains coal from 

British sources, 80, 81, 190 
Saunders, Prof., 228 
Saskatchewan, River, farming 

lands along the, 28, 41, 42 
Sault Ste. Marie, 61, 121 
Scenery, magnificence of Canadian, 

7 
Schultz, Governor, opinion on 

mixed farming, 24 
Schurman, Dr., 107 
Security of life and property in 

North- West, 33 
Sherbrooke, 149 
Silver in British Columbia, 164, 

165, 193 
Smith, Mr. Goldwin, 126, 185, 

234 
Smith, Sir Donald, Governor of 

Hudson's Bay Company, 181 ; 

gifts to McGill College, 219 
St. Albert, 29 
St. John, 102 ; harbour of, and its 

defence, 103 ; decay of shipping, 

104 ; great fire at, 104 
Stephenson, Robert, 49 (note) 
Straw, burning of, 14, 22 
Sudbury, nickel mines at, 193 
Sydney, coal mines at, 76 

Tache, Archbishop, 135 
Tache, Sir Etienne, 134 
Tariff, 199-202 ; effect of McKin- 
ley, 197 



Index 



2=;i 



Thompson, Mr. S. R., 107 
Thompson, Sir John, 107, 235, 
241 

Tilley, Sir Leonard, 106 

Timber of British Columbia, 166, 
167 ; of Northern Canada, 175 ; 
trade, 189 

Toronto, 98 ; British sentiment 
of, 99 ; journalistic and literary 
centre of Dominion, 98 ; uni- 
versity of, 220 

Trade, relations and policy, 183- 
208 ; cattle, 188 ; apple, 189 ; 
timber, 189 ; poultry, 190 ; 
with Great Britain and United 
States, 197 ; greater freedom 
of, 202 

Trappists at Oka, 151 

Tupper, Sir Charles, 103 

Tupper, Sir Hibbert, 107 

United Empire Loyalists, 99, 
100 

United States, trade relations 
with, 186 ; safety valve for 
labour troubles, 214, 215 ; mi- 
gration to, 129, 130, 215, 216 

Universities: McGill, 218, 219 
Toronto, 220 ; Queen's, 221 
gifts to, 221 ; Laval, 221 
single university needed in 
Maritime Provinces, 222 



Vancouver, comparative latitude 

of, 3 ; large timber of, 167 ; 

growth and position of, 171, 

172 
Vancouver Island, coal of, 79 
Van Home, Sir Wm. , 47, 51, 55, 

198 
Victoria, 169, 170 
Victoria Bridge, 49 (note) 
Villiers, Sir Henry de, 143 
Voyageurs, 180 

Wellington mines, 79 

West India, telegraphic connec- 
tion with, 102 ; trade with, 197 

Whalebacks, 49 

Wheat, output of, 14 ; increase in 
production of, 17, 18 ; possi- 
bility of increase, 18 ; prepara- 
tion of land for, 15 ; frosted 
and frozen, 21 ; cost of carry- 
ing, 43, 57 ; rivalry between 
Canadian and British farmer in 
production of, 43-44 ; Canadian 
market for surplus, 188 ; low 
price of, 242 

White, Mr. Solomon, 185 

Wine, production in Niagara 
peninsula, 94, 95 

Winnipeg, 32 

Woodstock (Ontario), 92, 100, 
117, 208 



RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON" AND BUNGAY. 



By the Same Author. 

IMPERIAL FEDERATION. The Problem of 
National Unity. Crown 8vo, cloth, 4s. 6d. 

ATHENuEUM. 

" The best thing that has yet appeared in favour of 
Imperial Federation." 

TIMES. 

" A very valuable repertory of topics applicable to the 
argument, and a powerful plea, at once persuasive and 
suggestive, for the further development of British Unity." 

NATIONAL OBSERVER. 

"This book has the imprint of thoroughness and 
masterly directness on every page ; its presentations are 
lucid, its generalizations powerful ; it justifies the writer 
and his principles." 

GLASGOW HERALD. 
" Mr. Parkin's book is able, thorough, and suggestive." 

YORKSHIRE POST. 

" His pages are so full of interest and information that 
a reader must indeed be dull-spirited who, having opened 
the volume, does not go with its author to the end." 

SATURDAY REVIEW. 
" A welcome contribution to the higher politics." 

THE GUARDIAN. 
"- Admirable for tone, temper, and fulness of matter." 

WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 

" Mr. Parkin has produced a peculiarly thoughtful and 
interesting work, and the empire generally owes him a 
debt of gratitude." 

MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. 



By the Same Author. 

ROUND THE EMPIRE 

For the Use of Schools. 

With a Preface by 

The Right Hon. The EARL of ROSEBERY, K.G. 

Fiftieth Thousand. Price 1s. 6d. 

PRESS OPINIONS. 

" Never has a book been placed in the hands of British men and British boys and 
girls which conveyed great facts more plainly aud picturesquely. It focuses the 
Empire for us." — Literary Opinion. 

"We can heartily commend both the purpose and execution of the work." 

— Times. 

" No school Library ought to be without it." — School Guardian. 

" This excellent little work should be read by every Ei.glishinan, from London to 
Levuka. "—Colonies and India. 

"A school book with a purpose and character of its own." — Scotsman. 

"As a reading book for young people nothing could be more interesting and 
instructi ve. " — Li terary World. 

"Although written for the use of schools, it should not be restricted to such 
use alone. It possesses marked utility for another and more advanced class of 
readers." — Daily Telegraph. 



BRITISH EMPIRE MAP OP THE 

WORLD ; on Mercator's Projection. By GEO. R. PARKIN, 
M.A., and J. G. BARTHOLOMEW, F.R.G.S. 8 ft. in length by 
5 ft. in depth. On Cloth, rollers or folded. Price 25s. 

This Map has been designed to indicate with as much distinctness 
as possible the Geographical position of the various parts of the 
British Empire, and their relation to each other for purposes of 
Commerce and Defence. 

It was used by the Ottawa Conference of 1894 in its discussions of 
imperial communications, and it has been adopted for use in the schools 
of some of the most important Colonies. 

PRESS OPINIONS. 
" Should serve an excellent purpose in schools and other places of education by 
affording the young British citizen a comprehensive view of the place and influence 
jn the world of the Empire to which he belongs."— Times. 

" The map presents features of great political and educational interest." 

— Scotsman. 

"For magnitude, information, and excellence of finish this is quite a monu- 
mental work."— Liverpool Mercury. 

"It is difficult to imagine a better aid for teachers." — Leeds Mercury. 

" It is quite a triumph of map making on a large scale, and even a few minutes' 
inspection of it is an enlightenment in the geography, commerce and civilising 
activity of the British Empire."— School Board Chronicle. 

CASSELL AND COMPANY, Limited. 

London, Paris & Melbourne. 



V 



